u 
 
THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 AND OTHER POEMS 
 
THE WORLD THAT GOD 
 DESTROYED 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 BY 
 
 FREDERICK E. PIERCE 
 
 NEW HAVEN 
 
 YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 MCMXI 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1911 
 
 BY 
 YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 Printed from type. 750 copies. September, 1911. 
 
 Dramatic and all other rights reserved 
 
 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES 
 
TO THE MOST PATIENT 
 
 AND LOVING OF ALL MY CRITICS 
 
 MY SISTER MARY 
 
 255792 
 
We take pleasure in acknowledging the 
 courtesy of The Independent, The Pacific 
 Monthly, and The Yale Review for permission 
 to republish poems that have previously 
 appeared in their pages. 
 
TO THE READER 
 
 Out of the lone New England hills, 
 
 Where fields are rocky and hearts are stern, 
 Where there s much to suffer and much to learn, 
 
 And men build visions no God fulfills ; 
 
 Out of the haunted elms of Yale, 
 
 Where hopes have budded and friendships leaved, 
 And the spirit in which her sons believed 
 
 Fired hero s effort and poet s tale ; 
 
 Out of a hope that perhaps was vain; 
 
 Out of a dream that he ne er will rue, 
 
 Reader, the author speaks to you 
 In a world of wonder and joy and pain. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 To the Reader vii 
 
 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED: 
 
 Prologue 1 
 
 Act I 3 
 
 Act II 20 
 
 Act III 56 
 
 Act IV 77 
 
 Act V 109 
 
 OTHER POEMS: 
 
 Armistice 121 
 
 The Man-eater 126 
 
 Early Death . 127 
 
 Voices from Elfland: 
 
 I. The Appeal of the Fairies . . 129 
 
 II. The Stolen Child 130 
 
 The Last Night of Capua 133 
 
 The Coming of Peace 136 
 
 Thoughts on Opening Webster s Diction 
 ary 138 
 
 A Vision of Evil . 141 
 
 Wasted Seeds . 143 
 
 The Butterfly 144 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Oriole 147 
 
 The Night-watch 150 
 
 Shakespeare to Imogen 153 
 
 Truth 154. 
 
 The Divine Comedy of To-day . . . 156 
 
 A Fairy Story 157 
 
 The Seacoast in Winter 160 
 
 School-girls 161 
 
 The Eventless Tragedy 162 
 
 The Visit to the Old Farm . . . . 164 
 On Placing a Tombstone over My 
 
 Father s Grave 166 
 
 The Farewell to Reason 169 
 
 The Corn-buskers 170 
 
 The Family Bible 172 
 
THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 AND OTHER POEMS 
 
THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 THE EVE OF THE DELUGE 
 
 The sun sank palled in dread; 
 
 Birds hushed, on bough; 
 "God is a myth/ men said, 
 
 As men do now. 
 Beneath the Eternal s frown 
 Loud reveled king and clown; 
 Blood flowed in field and town, 
 
 None questioned how. 
 
 The dripping chaplet tied 
 
 The harlot s brow; 
 Grave statesmen planned and lied, 
 
 Secure as now. 
 As lions, drowsing, seem 
 To hunt in hungry dream, 
 Purred the great ocean stream 
 
 Round cape and prow. 
 
2 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 Night came; no face was pale; 
 
 No prayer, no vow. 
 God stood behind the veil, 
 
 As He does now. 
 Strange tints the heaven tinged, 
 Like light from doors unhinged; 
 And the wild panther cringed, 
 
 And bird on bough. 
 
 Bards harped in halls impure; 
 
 Slaves forged the plow ; 
 Earth dreamed she should endure 
 
 As long as now. 
 Next morning swam the whale 
 O er throne and altar-rail. 
 Twas an old Hebrew tale; 
 
 But read it, thou. 
 
ACT I. 
 
 TIME. The morning before the Deluge. 
 
 PLACE. A hill near the ark, commanding a view 
 over the plain to the east and the city of Cain in its 
 midst. 
 
 [Enter Noah and a friend.] 
 
 NOAH. There, kinsman, slow, like God s reluc 
 tant wrath, 
 Comes the last dawning of a world. 
 
 FRIEND. Tis calm, 
 
 As mild as mercy s front. For men so long 
 Cherished, forgiven, warned, and spared in vain, 
 Twill neither warn nor spare. 
 
 NOAH. Is Javan come ? 
 
 FRIEND. Last night his horsemen signaled from 
 
 the plain; 
 An hour will bring him. 
 
 NOAH. Bold was he to linger 
 
 So far from home beneath the threat of Heaven. 
 
 FRIEND. Sad news will wait him; he loved Irad 
 dearly. 
 
 NOAH. So did we all. Alas, the boy ! 
 
 [Enter attendant.] 
 
 ATTENDANT. My chief. 
 
 NOAH. Your errand, sir? 
 
4 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 ATTENDANT. An embassy from Nod. 
 
 NOAH. From Nod to-day ! What irony works in 
 
 heaven 
 To send them here to-day? What mission draws 
 
 them? 
 
 Well, bring them hither. Will it not seem uncanny 
 To treat with dying states on doomsday morning? 
 FRIEND. And hear them roar as lions do, when, 
 
 scratched 
 With poison darts, they re doomed and know it not. 
 
 [Enter Tubal-cain with a splendid retinue.] 
 
 TUBAL. I bring you greetings from the land of 
 
 Nod. 
 NOAH. In the same will and temper we return 
 
 them. 
 Wherein can Noah serve the sons of Cain ? 
 
 TUBAL. In yielding them their own, too long 
 
 unclaimed. 
 
 You hold a boy called Irad, one of us, 
 Ten moons detained as hostage here, a boy 
 Whom much we learned to love. We d have him 
 
 back; 
 And therefore am I come. 
 
 NOAH. Is Irad yours 
 
 Because Cain s daughter bore him, Cainite homes 
 Misled his years till manhood? Nay, his sire 
 Was my own brother, and his blood was ours. 
 Nor held we him as hostage ; his free will 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 5 
 
 Made him prefer his father s people here, 
 Adopted, not detained. And would to God 
 I had no more to tell. 
 
 TUBAL. Ay, so you say. 
 
 Lies nestle green beneath a hoary beard 
 Like wheat beneath a snowdrift. Bring him here; 
 And see if, when the road lies open plain 
 To Nod, he ll feel adopted. 
 
 NOAH. Not so fast. 
 
 Love held him here with golden threads ; now here 
 Will j ustice chain him. Dread has been the fruit 
 Of your ill schooling and his mother s blood. 
 The curse of Cain has found his child through you. 
 Enoch, my kin, is dead by him you seek. 
 
 TUBAL. Yea, so we heard and therefore came. 
 
 What then? 
 
 Revenge is for the strong and not for you. 
 Yield up the boy; or, by the serpent s head 
 That lost us Eden, to-morrow you shall hear 
 Our Cainite javelins rattling through your tents. 
 A dreadful day twill be. 
 
 NOAH. Dreadful indeed. 
 
 Thou canst not dream what little cause have I 
 To fear thy wrath to-morrow, nor what Arm 
 Shall be my proxy working death on thee. 
 Vaunt on ; I dread thee not. 
 
 TUBAL. Then hark again. 
 
 My horsemen hold a captive down below, 
 Your youngest son, your Javan, taken but now, 
 
6 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 Surety for Irad s life. To-morrow s sun, 
 If it see Irad on these hills with you, 
 Sees Javan down with us. 
 
 NOAH. To-morrow s sun 
 
 See Javan there ! Eternal God forbid ! 
 
 TUBAL. Or him or Irad ; choose. 
 
 NOAH. Bring Irad hither. 
 
 [Exit attendant.] 
 
 FRIEND. Droop not; God works in this. Per 
 chance last night 
 We judged too gently; blood demandeth blood. 
 
 NOAH. Let him not die red-handed ! Lord of 
 
 Nod, 
 
 How say you if the boy refuse to go, 
 Of his own choice remain? 
 
 TUBAL. In dreams I see him. 
 
 NOAH. But if he do, shall Javan then be free ? 
 
 TUBAL. If he do this, or if the burning stars 
 Turn dancing eastward, then, and not before, 
 Shall you keep both. 
 
 FRIEND. Knew he what comes to-morrow 
 
 He then were safe. 
 
 NOAH. He knows not, yet may stay. 
 
 Let God inspire his answer, God decide. 
 
 [Enter Irad.] 
 
 Irad, the people of the plains demand you; 
 We d keep you still. Here part the ways: with 
 them 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 7 
 
 The false, bright glamour glittering o er decay 
 Which here you learned to loathe; with us long 
 
 years 
 
 Of penance hard and durance, but they form 
 Repentant stairs to God. Though jailers we, 
 Yet friends we are to save you from yourself. 
 Make public choice between us. 
 
 TUBAL. Choose, boy, choose. 
 
 We ll back your choice up with our bones and 
 
 brawn ; 
 And here s my valid signet. (Drawing his sword.) 
 
 Lad, you re pale. 
 They give you watery diet. 
 
 IRAD. No, I m well, 
 
 And glad to see your grizzled face. But this, 
 What s this that I must do? 
 
 TUBAL. Our wines are flat 
 
 Without the boy we miss. Come home with us. 
 
 IRAD. What, now? 
 
 TUBAL. Why not? What drowsy 
 
 godliness 
 Have you to pack? Come, share the wealth of 
 
 friends. 
 We feast the gods to-night. 
 
 NOAH. Decide not rashly. 
 
 Strange things you know not are astir to-day 
 Might change your choice to-morrow. 
 
 IRAD. Had you come 
 
8 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 But yester-morning ! Blood since then has flowed, 
 And made me conscience captive. 
 
 TUBAL. Let it flow. 
 
 We were not born to bleat like lambs, my lad ; 
 And our o er-zealous friend harangued too long. 
 Twas a good blow. 
 
 IRAD. Yes, with a single stroke 
 
 I ve killed one man and damned another. 
 
 TUBAL. Tut, tut ! 
 
 I have been damned for centuries and have thrived. 
 
 IRAD. I beg an hour ere answering. 
 
 TUBAL. What! so cool 
 
 Between our love and dungeons ! 
 
 NOAH. He is free, 
 
 May go or stay. Send Javan now to us. 
 Till then, my lord, you are our guest. 
 
 TUBAL. I thank you. 
 
 I ll take a nap and sleep away the time. 
 Think on old ties, my boy, think on old ties, 
 Who played with you, caroused with you, and stood 
 Bestriding you in battle. You ll not find 
 Their like in Noah s milk-and-water saints. 
 I ll see you in an hour. 
 
 [Exit Tubal-cain and retinue. Music.] 
 
 NOAH. What strains are these? 
 
 FRIEND. Hither they bring the dead for sunrise 
 
 rite, 
 Our last farewell. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 9 
 
 NOAH (to Irad). Wilt thou withdraw? 
 IRAD. I ll stay. 
 
 But tell not Javan, add not his reproach. 
 NOAH. He shall not know to-day. 
 
 [Enter attendants with the body of Enoch.] 
 
 Here lay him down. 
 Weep not; he journeys to eternal God. 
 All weakness which is flesh s heritage 
 Falls down like ashes burnt ; and the clear fire, 
 Through aether leaping, seeks the sun that gave it. 
 Alas, my brother, yet rejoice. Farewell! 
 
 [The Noahites move in procession around the bier, 
 each laying a white wreath on it as he speaks.] 
 
 FIRST NOAHITE. Farewell. 
 SECOND NOAHITE. Farewell. 
 
 THIRD NOAHITE. Farewell. 
 
 FOURTH NOAHITE. Farewell. 
 
 FIFTH NOAHITE. Farewell. 
 
 SONG 
 
 Where shall the champion rest, 
 The brave, the eager, 
 
 Who filled his Lord s behest 
 In field and leaguer? 
 
10 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 For him all j oys are blent, 
 
 Long Sabbath keeping 
 Soft in Jehovah s tent, 
 
 Like children sleeping. 
 
 More grand than stone could rear 
 
 His tomb is founded, 
 The sea that wraps the sphere, 
 
 Blue and unbounded. 
 
 Farewell ! Hard task have we 
 
 New worlds restoring. 
 Some day we ll rest with thee, 
 
 Our God adoring. 
 
 Where the great feast is spread 
 
 And lamps are lighted, 
 Shall we beyond the dead 
 
 Be yet united. 
 
 I RAD. And shall I also dare to say farewell ? 
 Stern hast thou been, yet may st relent to know 
 Who sent thee hence now mourns. Alas my deed ! 
 So far from all I purposed ! Is it true 
 That in my veins wells up the ancient curse ? 
 Am I a thing at odds with life, akin 
 To upas-tree and tiger ? Must the world 
 Kill me or die by me ? In what far years 
 Did my dead fathers rob their heirs of hope, 
 Blasting their self-control? 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 11 
 
 [Enter Javan.~\ 
 
 JAVAN. Where lies our dead? 
 
 NOAH. Behold. 
 
 JAVAN. Can heart so fiery be so still? 
 
 Rash was thy tongue and stern, unhappy man, 
 Which hath provoked too much some son of Cain. 
 Forgive me that in life I j arred with thee. 
 Rest happy and farewell. 
 
 NOAH. Bear hence the dead. 
 
 And, Javan, as thou lovest Irad well, 
 Remain and speak with him. The Cainite lords 
 Wait here to bear him back. 
 
 [Exeunt all except Irad and Javan.] 
 
 JAVAN. You play with us. 
 
 You cannot think in earnest you will go. 
 
 IRAD. Why not? The voice that calls the hom 
 ing wren 
 Calls me where I was born. Look down where 
 
 stands 
 
 Cain s ancient city, while the morning hush 
 Descends on amphitheater, park, and dome. 
 There lie my mother s and my father s graves ; 
 There lives my grandsire, Jared, weak and old, 
 Who calls for me in vain. There watches Adah, 
 My love, abruptly, cruelly left by me. 
 Shall these not draw me home ? 
 
 JAVAN. All there is evil. 
 
 Good with the good should bide, and you with us. 
 
12 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 I RAD. Oh, never say that all in Cain is evil, 
 That roseate glow in which prosaic life 
 Grows beautiful, imperial, strong. To-night 
 They hold their feast to Niloh, god of harvest. 
 All barriers broken, there the joy of life 
 Pours out in flood : all wealth of nature s realm, 
 In fruit or blossom or enchanting wine, 
 Or mystery of love, the whole night long 
 Observed by happy youth; all wealth of art, 
 Heaped up by lake or fountain, piled profuse 
 In dome or gallery, pouring on the ear 
 In melody to which in earth and star 
 Breath universal moves. Is Niloh evil, 
 Great source of life and life s romance as well? 
 
 JAVAN. Yet ever at his name my father frowns. 
 Wouldst thou that I should worship Niloh? 
 
 IRAD. No. 
 
 JAVAN. Why not, if he is good ? 
 
 IRAD. He is not good. 
 
 That I unsay; incarnate sin is he; 
 But sin that makes all life enchanted ground. 
 Tis virtuous winter here; and I d be gone, 
 Like birds that migrate to the sunny south, 
 To find where rapture dwells. 
 
 JAVAN. Dwells it not here? 
 
 Oh, yes, all beauty, joy of youth and bard, 
 Untainted and eternal joy. But now, 
 On yonder mountain, scratched along the stone, 
 I found an old and rainbeat stave of song 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 13 
 
 Which legends tell that martyred Abel made. 
 
 Men say he used to climb Niphates peak, 
 
 From whence his eye looked like an eagle down 
 
 On the Forbidden Garden. There he drew 
 
 The beauty of the landscape through his soul 
 
 Like breath through nostrils ; poured it out in song 
 
 That made all life seem miracle. And more,, 
 
 Emotion warm as day and vast as night, 
 
 Lives musical among the sons of Seth. 
 
 Stay here with me. You taught me first to know 
 
 The joy of being. I ll teach you in turn 
 
 To find it on our wild and healthful hills, 
 
 Free as in yonder city. 
 
 IRAD. So you might, 
 
 Came memories not between. Last night I dreamed 
 You stood and watched me through a bloody glass, 
 And through that glass would watch me evermore, 
 Seeing my face as hideous. 
 
 JAVAN. What is this ? 
 
 IRAD. A dream, no more. But dreams like this 
 
 will come 
 
 To break my rest, while here I wait and pine 
 In the dull chill of unaccustomed ways, 
 A tolerated alien. And in Nod 
 Foams the rich wine that makes the heart forget. 
 I ll mourn thee, Javan, more than thou wilt me; 
 But go I must. 
 
 JAVAN. Now by Jehovah, no ! 
 
14 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 IRAD. Yea, lad; my will is fixed. We ve long 
 
 been friends; 
 But now tis parting time. 
 
 J AVA N. So mad ! Then hear 
 
 What still from thee we kept, a truth so dread 
 To one whose friends and kindred dwell below 
 I d fain conceal it still. When first you came 
 Did not my father tell you earth was doomed? 
 And that tremendous ship at anchor near, 
 High on this mountain lake, a century s work, 
 Know you not why he built it? 
 
 IRAD. Yea, I know. 
 
 Doomsday is coming; but tis years away; 
 And I and mine may live, be glad, and die, 
 Ere the great Deluge swell. 
 
 JAVAN. Nay, there you err. 
 
 Not years nor months nor even days, but hours 
 Shall be your life in Nod. The time is now. 
 Even at this moment God s avenging Flood 
 Is gathering o er the nations. 
 
 I RAD . You are mad ! 
 
 JAVAN. Look westward where I point. Just 
 
 visible 
 
 Beyond those hilltops lies the ocean shore 
 In the blue distance. Look, do you not see 
 Strange clouds of smoky mist, that heavenward 
 Roll from the deep, and pile themselves aloft 
 Like rocks that soldiers pile on city walls 
 To hurl upon invaders ? Breeze is none, 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 15 
 
 And still they stand. But with the night shall blow 
 A western wind to drive them, dark with doom, 
 O er earth, and pouring from their cup the sea. 
 And hark ; with straining ear can you not catch 
 From that same west a strange, deep, boding 
 
 sound ? 
 
 There crack the dykes of ocean ; there awakes, 
 Reluctant from the sleep of centuries, 
 A monster huger than leviathan, 
 The dim, dread deep itself. The hour has come. 
 To-day the race of Cain, the land of Nod, 
 Rejoice at Niloh s knee. At dawn to-morrow 
 Race, god, and country, all that glittering life, 
 Its beauty, blasphemy, and glory, and sin, 
 Shall pave the ocean bottom. There from the west, 
 Where break the fountains of the deep, and loom 
 The freighted clouds of judgment, even now 
 Comes God to cleanse His world. 
 
 IRAD. Eternal Powers ! 
 
 JAVAN. At noon must all embark, the doors be 
 
 sealed. 
 
 And all on whom those doors shall close, all life, 
 Man, bird, or animal, or crawling snake, 
 Is doomed. You shall not go ! 
 
 IRAD. Oh, stand aside! 
 
 Leave me to my own thoughts ! 
 
 [Javan withdraws to the side of the scene.] 
 
 Is this a dream? 
 
16 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 There s not one thing in field or town or air 
 But seems as it hath seemed ten thousand times 
 In life s untroubled course. The face of heaven, 
 Oft called the countenance of the Living God, 
 Appears one kindly smile. And far and near 
 With such infectious confidence move on 
 The race of men, what heart can help but feel 
 With them that all is well ! Worlds should not die 
 Puffed out like candles, blown away like mist. 
 Yet one I trust declares it so from Heaven. 
 O God, if God Thou art, is it not terrible 
 To think old homes and ties, ancestral graves, 
 Friends once beloved, those landmarks where our 
 
 lives 
 
 Took root and grew, should mix with ocean mud; 
 And all we worshiped, loved, and lived for, be 
 One blank of waters ! Never, never, never ! 
 Heaven would not be so stern. Men mark alone 
 The tilted scale ; God knows what mountain loads 
 Of human goodness tugged the wavering beam 
 With earth s tremendous guilt. It cannot be! 
 Be merciful, be merciful, O God ! 
 
 [He throws himself on his face and is silent. Then 
 after a pause he speaks again.] 
 
 Suppose it true, shall I in Noah s ark 
 Crouch like a dog while friend and kinsman drown ? 
 There watch the corpse of Adah drifting by, 
 Her hair afloat like sea-weed, and her bosom 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 17 
 
 Nosed by the shark ; and when the Flood goes down, 
 Serve aliens o er my dead, while from his toinb 
 Enoch shall haunt my sleep? 
 
 [Enter Tubal-cain.~] 
 
 Oh, is it you? 
 
 Come, brother spirit, you can laugh at death, 
 Given or received. Come, and we ll laugh together. 
 One whole long day of j oy is ours ; away ! 
 
 JAVAN. Irad, where go you? 
 
 IRAD. Where my people are. 
 
 Into the joy of one last Niloh s feast, 
 Into the night where dim oblivion dwells, 
 And guilt has peace; where my hot murderer s 
 
 heart 
 
 May sleep as quiet as my great father Cain s ! 
 Sorrow to sorrow calls, and crime to crime ; 
 And theirs I am for earth and for all time ! 
 
 [He rushes away.] 
 
 TUBAL. His choice is made. Adieu. 
 
 JAVAN. One question first. 
 
 Enoch is dead. 
 
 TUBAL. I know it. 
 
 JAVAN. Know it ! How ? 
 
 Were you his murderer? 
 
 TUBAL. Think so if you will. 
 
 I ll ne er object. 
 
18 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 JAVAN (turning from him). His blood is on 
 
 your soul. 
 
 Forgive me, Irad, what I dared to think. 
 (Calling) Wait, friend, one moment! 
 
 TUBAL. Youngster, not so fast. 
 
 You stir not hence a step till he is safe 
 O er yonder boundary where my horsemen wait. 
 JAVAN. Ruffian, I ll dog thy flight but he shall 
 
 hear. 
 TUBAL. Good friend, you are too young to 
 
 loathe your life. 
 
 Take my advice and bide on Noah s ground. 
 There s danger yonder. 
 
 JAVAN. What fiend made you so strong? 
 
 TUBAL. He mounts and rides; they wait for 
 me. Farewell. 
 
 [Half draws his sword with a menacing gesture, 
 and exit.] 
 
 JAVAN. Gone, gone ! 
 
 [Enter a Noahite.] 
 
 NOAHITE. Is Irad fled? 
 
 JAVAN. Fled to his doom. 
 
 NOAHITE. God s will is hard. 
 
 JAVAN. At friendship s call he dies. 
 
 Shall I do less ? Look there ! Against the dawn 
 How high towers Himenay o er the mountains 
 round ! 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 19 
 
 Has God not said when seas o er mountains flowed 
 On Himenay s peak the ark should find dry land ? 
 
 NOAHITE. Even so. 
 
 JAVAN. Enough ! A god might stand on tiptoe, 
 And yet not reach its crest to pull you down. 
 What think you, man? 
 
 NOAHITE. How now? Your looks are wild. 
 
 JAVAN. Go, bid them bring my horse. 
 
 NOAHITE. Ride not to-day. 
 
 At noon the doors are sealed ; when that is done 
 Noah s own child might knock unheard. 
 
 JAVAN. Be gone. 
 
 I shall not knock after the doors are sealed. 
 
 CURTAIN. 
 
ACT II. 
 
 SCENE I. 
 
 TIME. The eve of the Deluge. 
 
 PLACE. The great square in the center of Cain s 
 city. In the background is a statue of Niloh, the 
 harvest god, "the reaper of delight." On one side 
 are lofty buildings; on the other the grounds of a 
 magnificent park. Beyond is a glimpse of the 
 western horizon piled with strange looking clouds. 
 The scene begins at twilight, but night gathers as 
 it progresses. A crowd gradually forms around 
 the pedestal of the statue. 
 
 [Enter four gallants singing.] 
 
 FIRST GALLANT. 
 
 Come, gather, friends ; one more carouse, 
 While stars benign in heaven house, 
 And tinkling lyre and torch invite 
 To taste the joy of Niloh s night. 
 
 SECOND GALLANT. 
 
 The darkened hours begin to bud 
 On Time s old trunk for us to pull ; 
 Enchantment warms the lover s blood; 
 The vineyard s magic tide is full. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 21 
 
 THIRD GALLANT. 
 
 Deem not the gods forbid to drink 
 The cup of joy they deign to brew; 
 The throned immortals laugh and wink 
 At what they would and would not view. 
 
 FOURTH GALLANT. 
 
 Waste not what Nature ne er renews; 
 She ll warm no more the faded flowers, 
 Nor offer twice what we refuse 
 When life and lovely youth are ours. 
 
 FIRST GALLANT. But remember before we part 
 that you are all to come down to-morrow and share 
 my villa in the hills. Everything which you wish 
 shall be there at your disposal. Would you feast, 
 we have loaded our tables with meats and wines. 
 Would you hear musicians or see paintings, we have 
 the best in Nod. Would you sail on the waters of 
 Dreamland, we will launch you with lotus and 
 poppy. Nay, if you wish, you may even find the 
 roguish Loves playing at hide-and-seek in a corner. 
 Gardens are there as pleasant as old Adam s Eden, 
 and unlimited time before us to enj oy them. You ll 
 come ? 
 
 SECOND, THIRD AND FOURTH GALLANTS. We ll 
 not forget. 
 
 SECOND GALLANT. Will the poet Iban be there? 
 
 FIRST GALLANT. He joins us later. 
 
 THIRD GALLANT. He is a genius, Iban. 
 
22 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 FOURTH GALLANT. I preferred Bahran ; he had 
 
 the fire. 
 SECOND AND THIRD GALLANTS. Oh, no, Iban 
 
 forever! What technique! 
 FIRST GALLANT. We start at noon to-morrow. 
 
 (It lightens in the west.) 
 
 [They move on. Two corpses are borne in and 
 halted before the shrine. Enter Javan and a 
 Cainite.] 
 
 CAINITE. There stands the shrine; there soon 
 
 your friend must come. 
 JAVAN. What dead are here? 
 CAINITE. It is the poet Bahran. 
 
 JAVAN. He looks like Irad. Oft my cousin 
 
 praised him. 
 
 Did Heaven love him that he died to-day, 
 Or mark him first for wrath? What boy is this ? 
 CAINITE. Did you not know? He was the 
 
 prettiest lad. 
 
 Bahran left wife and mistress, friend and home 
 For love of him, adored him, hung their chamber 
 With curtains worth a province, built sweet foun 
 tains 
 By which they lay together. 
 
 JAVAN. Was their bond 
 
 Pure or polluted? 
 
 CAINITE. Let their foes inquire, 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 23 
 
 Their friends but say they loved. The boy died 
 
 first. 
 
 He had the fever ; Bahran watched with him ; 
 And when he saw the form he loved grow cold, 
 He killed himself. "Nor man nor woman more 
 Shall share my love," he said, and speaking died, 
 His arms around his playmate. 
 
 JAVAN. Irad s Bahran. 
 
 CAINITE. His home was like a palace, and his 
 
 gardens 
 The loveliest thing on earth ; a nation praised him. 
 
 JAVAN. Where goes he now? 
 
 CAINITE. All night to lie in state 
 
 Within the dome. His funeral is to-morrow. 
 Sad day twill be. Adieu. 
 
 [Exit.] 
 
 JAVAN. He looks like one 
 
 Whose vice entombed a dead and nobler self. 
 
 [He stands aside. Enter a man and woman.] 
 
 MAN. Will you not yield ? It is the lovers hour. 
 Clear trills the bird of love, and twinkling beams 
 The orb of lovers. I have wooed you long. 
 Why was this beauty given you ? Why to me 
 This burning blood and power to taste delight ? 
 
 WOMAN. I have a husband. 
 
 MAN. So has many a woman. 
 
 I know a fountain welling up in stone 
 
24 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 As fair as you. Its waves are ever sweet, 
 Though more than one has tasted. 
 
 WOMAN. Ever sweet 
 
 While tasted only. Should you plunge and wallow, 
 Who d care to drink that gentle fountain then? 
 Restrained delight is dearest. 
 
 MAN. Not forever. 
 
 WOMAN. To-night my husband and myself must 
 
 watch 
 
 In Niloh s worship; but, beloved, to-morrow 
 Ah, then 
 
 MAN. Oh, much will mean that word "to 
 morrow" ! 
 
 No eye shall see us where we re lying then, 
 Nor any husband know. 
 
 WOMAN. And now goodnight. 
 
 How sweet is life ! And twill be doubly sweet 
 To-morrow! (It lightens in the west.) 
 
 [They pass on. Enter Irad.] 
 
 JAVAN. My cousin Irad! 
 
 IRAD. How, misguided boy ! 
 
 What evil genius led your wanderings here 
 To-night of all the years ? 
 
 JAVAN. The name of friend. 
 
 IRAD. Wilt share my fortunes, then, and fly with 
 
 me? 
 
 JAVAN. To earth s four windy corners, if you 
 will. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 25 
 
 I RAD. Look yonder where the mountains loom; 
 
 up them 
 We ll climb past ocean s reach. 
 
 JAVAN. Nay, nay, not there. 
 
 In three short days those puny peaks will be 
 But rocks in ocean s bed. I ve risked my life 
 To show a safer way. Tis yonder, see, 
 Up Himenay s peak ; for there, as God has said, 
 After the Flood the ark shall find dry land. 
 
 IRAD. That way is long, the Deluge close. 
 
 JAVAN. No more! 
 
 Take that or nothing; lesser heights are death. 
 
 [Enter Tubal-cain.] 
 
 IRAD. You empty-handed too, nor found our 
 friends ? 
 
 TUBAL. They march in Niloh s column, this I 
 
 learned. 
 We ll wait it here and meet them ; better so. 
 
 IRAD. I ve wasted golden hours in this pursuit 
 We ill could spare, and traversed all the town, 
 Home, hall, and council chamber. 
 
 TUBAL. Well, be calm. 
 
 Long absence weaned you from our life ; this tour 
 Of high and low refreshed the faded lines, 
 Renewed the picture. 
 
 IRAD. Work of burning pencils 
 
 Were not more vivid. Eager everywhere 
 
26 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 The people trod each other s heels, as though 
 There were a million morrows. 
 
 TUBAL. Well, there are. 
 
 IRAD. The lords in council voted richer hangings 
 Around their hall. Near by were masons laying 
 A castle s corner-stone. Beside the way 
 I met three children gay as crickets dancing, 
 Who, when I asked their cause of gladness, piped: 
 "The holidays have come, the holidays 
 Begin to-night." And one, a little maid, 
 Whose face was like a blossom, cried, "To-morrow 
 We ll gather Niloh s roses." Then a mother, 
 With sunken face, but smiling, told a neighbor 
 That now her griefs were done, her son, imprisoned 
 Long years ago, would be released to-morrow. 
 You would have thought the hoarded bliss of earth 
 Was in that word "to-morrow." 
 
 TUBAL. What s all this r 
 
 IRAD. I ll let thee know at dawning. 
 
 TUBAL. Hark, the music! 
 
 Tis Niloh s trumpet that the choristers 
 Are blowing as they march. Our friends are 
 coming. 
 
 [Enter in procession the priests of Niloh, led by 
 the high pontiff. They are dressed in purple 
 with golden ornaments, and as emblems carry 
 broken fetters. Last in the procession moves 
 the blind Jared, led by another priest. They 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 27 
 
 circle three times around the idol, singing to 
 music. ] 
 
 SONG 
 
 We dwelt in the valley of thunder, 
 
 And the Elohim sat on the edge ; 
 The Heavens were holding us under, 
 
 And the lightning came down like a wedge. 
 And the cherubim, armored and sworded, 
 
 Flew sentinel, dreadful to see ; 
 While like misers we garnered and hoarded 
 
 Life s treasure for ages to be. 
 But Niloh came manteled in beauty 
 
 Through the valley of woe and affright; 
 He hewed down the thorn-tree of Duty, 
 
 And planted the rose of Delight. 
 Through pleasure exulting or tender 
 
 He led us like monarchs released ; 
 And he housed us pavilioned in splendor, 
 
 And placed us forever at feast. 
 Let our children from cycle to cycle 
 
 Lament that their coffers are void; 
 But though Eden is guarded by Michael, 
 
 Despite him we ve lived and enjoyed. 
 And our fame till the mountains are leveled, 
 
 Like a cloud that the sunset has laved, 
 Shall tell in what glory we reveled 
 
 On the wealth that the ages had saved. 
 
28 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 [Irad draws aside Jared and his companion, while 
 tine other priests move on.] 
 
 JARED. What voice is this I hear? Is it not 
 Irad? 
 
 IRAD. Ten moons you heard it not. Is it so dear 
 You know it now? 
 
 JARED. Ah, boy, these blind old eyes 
 Have wept thee many an hour. 
 
 IRAD. Your blessing, sir. 
 
 JARED. All Niloh s joys and length of years be 
 thine. 
 
 PRIEST. Your face makes summer in an old 
 
 man s life. 
 You ll feast with me to-night ? 
 
 IRAD. Your pardon, sir; 
 
 I ve other work. 
 
 PRIEST. A-ha! this other work! 
 
 Young blood, young blood! I have been young, 
 
 and known 
 
 What Niloh gave, the wondrous body of youth. 
 I am not jealous. Tis a sightly night; 
 Dark clouds along the west, but clear above. 
 How dim the stars are! What s that light that 
 
 burns 
 Behind Orion yonder? 
 
 TUBAL. There s another 
 
 Off to the north, and eastward gleams a third. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 29 
 
 PRIEST. They come and go. There shines 
 
 another out, 
 
 As if a window opened in the sky 
 And closed again. 
 
 JAVAN. Adown the south they gleam 
 
 Like rents in burning walls that part and totter ! 
 
 PRIEST. What mean these silent fires in open 
 heaven ? 
 
 TUBAL. Now I was ever a cheery augur, man. 
 I deem the gods, carousing in the sky, 
 Are sprawled in ecstasy, upsetting round 
 Celestial torch and cresset. And if so, 
 Why, well do what we please, and drowsy Heaven 
 Be none the wiser. 
 
 JAVAN. That s a daring jest! 
 
 TUBAL. Nay, Sethite; thought so reverent never 
 
 lit 
 
 Thy dingy brain, devising gods of whey. 
 Where the Great Reaper, girt with lambent life, 
 In life s wild maelstrom which his pulses share, 
 Reels on through nodding heaven and rushing star, 
 There is a deity, an existence there 
 Which scorns your pap and swaddling laws 
 divine ! 
 
 PRIEST. The western wind blows keen. O er 
 
 Noah s hill 
 How black the tempest heaves ! 
 
 TUBAL. I m still perverse. 
 
 That biggest cloud, just o er the central peak, 
 
30 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 Appears a giant cask,, that jovial gods 
 Would stave o er earth in oceans. 
 
 IRAD - Hark, the music ! 
 
 [Enter a chorus of Bacchants. They wear gar 
 lands in which bunches of grapes are entwined 
 with lotus leaves and the flowers of the opium 
 poppy. In their hands some carry goblets of 
 wine, others leaves of lotus or heads of poppy. 
 They circle around the idol, singing.] 
 
 SONG 
 
 Which has more power, 
 
 And who shall determine? 
 Fruitage and flower, 
 
 Or king in the ermine ? 
 Which has more use 
 
 To heighten life s meaning, 
 Petal and juice, 
 
 Or gold of thy gleaning? 
 Wrapped in the rind, 
 
 Instilled in the stamen, 
 More in its kind 
 
 Than fighter or flamen; 
 Stored in the stem, 
 
 Enclosed in the anther, 
 Fairer than gem, 
 
 And fiercer than panther; 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 31 
 
 Deeps of desire 
 
 And manhood amassing,, 
 Focused like fire 
 
 On the hour that is passing; 
 Doomed by decree, 
 
 And falsely forbidden, 
 Here is the key 
 
 Of the hoard that was hidden. 
 Bards beyond count 
 
 Till ages are hoary, 
 Fed from the fount, 
 
 Shall sing of its glory. 
 
 A BACCHANT. Tis Irad. Welcome, welcome 
 
 back to Nod ! 
 BACCHANTS. Ho, Irad, Irad, join the dance with 
 
 us! 
 IRAD. No, not to-night. Comrades, farewell, 
 
 farewell ! 
 
 [The chorus moves on. Enter a conspirator, ap 
 proaching Javan,~\ 
 
 CONSPIRATOR. Hist, brother. 
 JAVAN. Who are you? 
 
 CONSPIRATOR. Nay, be not strange. 
 
 What will the morning prove? 
 
 JAVAN. A thing of dread. 
 
 CONSPIRATOR. Then he you are to whom they 
 sent me here. 
 
32 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 It works apace. All s ready, all in train; 
 Your trumpet blown will throw a kingdom down. 
 
 JAVAN. When so? 
 
 CONSPIRATOR. At sunrise ; thus tis understood. 
 
 JAVAN. At sunrise be it. 
 
 CONSPIRATOR. Then we ll meet again. 
 
 Laugh, giddy crowd. From mendicant to king, 
 None dream but us of what the morn will bring. 
 Speed, hours of night ; for while ye hold the sky 
 We are but men, as men may fail and die. 
 But soon will dawn the wished for day, and we 
 Be lords of all the land our eyes can see. 
 
 [He moves on. Enter a chorus of poets and artists 
 of all kinds. They bear various instruments 
 of their different callings. In their midst on 
 a splendid litter they carry Adah, enthroned 
 as the Goddess of Beauty and Pleasure. They 
 circle the idol and sing.] 
 
 SONG 
 
 Wherefore should art 
 
 Upon conscience be founded, 
 Searching the heart 
 
 Like an ocean unsounded? 
 Why should it point 
 
 To a path for pursuing, 
 Vainly anoint 
 
 Eyes weary of viewing? 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 33 
 
 Art is divine 
 
 But softer and sweeter, 
 Lovely in line, 
 
 And mystic in meter; 
 Waking the nerve 
 
 O er the wisdom that slumbers, 
 Graceful of curve, 
 
 And noble in numbers. 
 Bound in its mesh 
 
 Is the fay that was fleeing, 
 Joy of the flesh 
 
 And beauty of being. 
 Life in its bowl 
 
 To a drop it condenses, 
 Lulling the soul, 
 
 And charming the senses. 
 Vainly the years 
 
 Would banish or bind it ; 
 Deep it inheres, 
 
 And the future shall find it. 
 
 [Adah descends and places her tiara on the knee 
 of Niloh. The chorus kneel while she does 
 so, and then move on. As Adah turns away 
 from the statue she meets Irad.~\ 
 
 ADAH. Whence comest thou unlocked for ? 
 
 IRAD. Lo, I m kneeling 
 
 And weeping, Adah. Thou art pale. How far 
 I sinned in flight from what I deemed as sin! 
 
34 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 ADAH. Art thou returned? Why didst thou 
 
 leave me so? 
 
 IRAD. I ll tell thee later, but forgive me now. 
 ADAH. From what fair daughter of the race of 
 
 Seth 
 Com st thou to me for change? 
 
 I RAD - No woman s face 
 
 Has filled my heart but thine. Thy only rivals 
 Were dreams that now are dead. Wilt thou for 
 give me? 
 
 ADAH. What else can woman do ? Too well you 
 
 know 
 
 Our hearts are clay where yours are hammered 
 steel. 
 
 IRAD. Are these hot drops that tremble on my 
 
 cheek 
 
 Like metal plummets ? Do my warm lips feel 
 Like chilling iron? 
 
 JARED. Clasp each other close. 
 
 Tis Niloh s night, and Niloh s blessing falls 
 On love and lovers. I m a gray old stump, 
 But in my children s joy my youth reblossoms. 
 
 [Enter a procession of young men and women 
 marching in couples chained together with 
 flowers, and accompanied by little children 
 dressed as Loves. They circle around the idol, 
 and sing.] 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 35 
 
 SONG 
 
 Why should the bee 
 
 Become bound if it settle, 
 Whose flight might be free 
 
 From petal to petal? 
 Why should the pear 
 
 Fall fresh and untasted ? 
 Or unbreathed be the air 
 
 Round the jasmine, and wasted? 
 Why should we thirst 
 
 Among fountains for quaffing? 
 Why two be accurst 
 
 When both might be laughing? 
 Why was the sun 
 
 Made common and cheering 
 If light we should shun, 
 
 Or feed on it fearing? 
 Strength may decay, 
 
 But its uses are over; 
 The puny can play, 
 
 And the least be a lover. 
 God is ensealed 
 
 In the peach, as its Former; 
 But more sweetly revealed 
 
 In what s rounder and warmer. 
 Hosts have no hire, 
 
 And archers are idle, 
 While Youth and Desire 
 
 Go marching to bridal. 
 
36 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 THE MEN. Ho, Irad, Irad, clasp thy love and 
 come ! 
 
 THE WOMEN. Come,, Adah, come! Ten moons 
 
 thy life was cold 
 
 Because thou loved st one, and he is here. 
 The night is Niloh s; clasp thy love and come! 
 
 IRAD. Stern gods forbid. Playmates, farewell, 
 farewell ! 
 
 JAVAN. Let us go hence ! God comes at dawn. 
 
 IRAD. Yea, true. 
 
 Grandfather, Tubal-cain, draw near to me. 
 Tis Niloh s night when he is lord supreme; 
 His slightest breath we must obey as law. 
 But now, delivered through his aged priest, 
 To me his summons came. He bids us all, 
 Before his hour is past, in pilgrimage 
 To seek his temple on Mount Himenay, 
 A rite that all should do, that never yet 
 Our family have done. Our horses wait 
 All ready saddled, and the god commands. 
 Our servants are at hand, all things prepared. 
 Let us be gone. 
 
 JARED. Ha, ha, impulsive boy! 
 
 Is Adah s heart so hard to reconcile, 
 Her love so unlike others, nought will serve 
 But holiest ground ; and we must post all night 
 To find what s here at home? Come, lad, I m old, 
 Unfit for such wild gallops. Niloh s orders, 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 37 
 
 Oh, well, I know him; he s a kindly god; 
 
 He ll wink and laugh. Be reasonable, stay here. 
 
 IRAD. I have a litter borne on horses near 
 For you and Adah. Come ! 
 
 ADAH. Wait here till morning. 
 
 We ll travel warm in sunlight where the road 
 Winds high above the sightly earth, and look 
 For miles below us. All the land will be 
 One glorious picture in the light to-morrow. 
 We d lose all this at night. 
 
 IRAD. Twill be a picture 
 
 No, let that rest. Oh, haste! What comes ere 
 
 dawn 
 Would justify a hundred times as much. 
 
 TUBAL. A storm is blowing up ; look over there. 
 Twill strike us now before we reach the mountain. 
 Stay here by j oily fires and good dry halls ; 
 Who d wander drenched among the rainy woods 
 Such nights as this will be? 
 
 JARED. Feel how the wind 
 
 Is rushing from the west. My aching bones 
 Do prophesy an evil night for them. 
 There comes the thunder. 
 
 JAVAN. What a flash was that ! 
 
 It looked as if the floor of heaven were split, 
 And eyes could peer beyond. 
 
 ADAH. What lights are those 
 
 Which move like spreading cracks along the sky ? 
 There s something strange abroad. O Irad, stay ! 
 
38 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 IRAD. By heaven, I ve reasons such as ne er were 
 
 man s. 
 We race with death. On, ere that tempest come ! 
 
 TUBAL. We are not children; give us reasons 
 
 why, 
 
 And I ll ride with you to the devil s jaws. 
 Without them I ll not budge. 
 
 IRAD. Are we alone? 
 
 TUBAL. No soul but us. 
 
 IRAD. Then listen. As I reached the town 
 
 to-day, 
 
 Kneeling in Niloh s temple to make prayer 
 For my success, twas the hour, Tubal-cain, 
 When you had left me on your own affair, 
 The high priest saw me there, and drawing me 
 Apart behind the altar said: "Young man, 
 I love your family well, and this you know ; 
 But there are others here whose hate to you 
 Is deep as is my love. In Niloh s name 
 I order you and yours on pilgrimage 
 To Himenay s top ; and see that you be gone 
 Before the midnight ring. If here you stay, 
 I say not whether wrath of gods or men, 
 But something you must fear." 
 
 JARED. Ah, there it is. 
 
 I ve watched them creeping into coil; and now 
 They d strike on Niloh s eve. Well, well, we ll go. 
 Better the rain a-patter on our heads 
 Than daggers in our ribs. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 39 
 
 TUBAL. Yes, get to horse ! 
 
 To-night well ride for life ; but red will be 
 Our reckoning when the fatal see-saw turns. 
 
 JARED. Are we provisioned for a siege like this ? 
 TUBAL. The stores of years are in the temple 
 
 vaults. 
 
 I RAD. On, on! for fast and dread are those 
 behind ! 
 
 [Exeunt] 
 
 CURTAIN. 
 
SCENE II. 
 
 TIME. Somewhat later on the same night. 
 PLACE. A ferry at the foot of Mount Himenay. 
 [Enter Javan, an attendant, and the ferryman.] 
 
 ATTENDANT. Here lies the landing; here the 
 
 rest must gather. 
 
 We ll hunt no more through night and mud; wait 
 here. 
 
 FERRYMAN. Then more are coming? 
 
 ATTENDANT. We lost them in the dark. 
 
 Have you a boat to ferry us to the mountain? 
 
 FERRYMAN. It lies below. 
 
 JAVAN. Go you and see it ready. 
 
 I ll wait them here. 
 
 [Exeunt attendant and ferryman.] 
 
 Whom wait I ? What are these, 
 My cousin s people? Is he one with them, 
 A part of that I ve seen? From what wild forces 
 Arose a world so beauteous and so bad ? 
 Where, where and what am I, and what the future 
 That waits for me and Irad, drifting far 
 From safe tradition o er uncharted seas? 
 God of my fathers, reach me down Thy hand, 
 That I may clasp it in the night. I fear. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 41 
 
 [Enter an overseer of the farming district and a 
 merchant.] 
 
 Is Irad come? Are ye his followers? 
 
 MERCHANT. Nay. 
 
 OVERSEER. Nay, if by Irad you mean lord Irad 
 of the great city, we come even now from discard 
 ing his livery. Many a year these estates were his 
 and his mother s before him. They have nourished 
 his pleasures well, though they never saw his face. 
 Now his reign is out; let them serve the pleasures 
 of others. 
 
 JAVAN. These, then, are Irad s lands ? 
 
 MERCHANT. They were, sir, but are no longer. 
 For all these ancestral acres his claim is forfeited. 
 At sunrise they re mine. 
 
 OVERSEER. You will find them sadly dilapidated. 
 Nowadays men drive estates, like horses, till they 
 drop. Present gain, present gladness, that s all 
 they think of; and the accounts of the future may 
 be settled by the poor devils who re born then. 
 
 MERCHANT. Well, sir, why should not the men 
 of the future pay the bills of the future ? 
 
 OVERSEER. Because, saving your worship, the 
 world doesn t go that way. Our fathers laid foun 
 dation for our prosperity; and if we lay none for 
 our sons, who shall? 
 
 MERCHANT. If our fathers worked so hard to 
 make us happy, heaven forbid that we should dis- 
 
42 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 appoint them. The toil of their vine-dressing effer 
 vesces in our wines ; the sweat of their masons floats 
 in cool breezes through our summer villas ; the ach 
 ing eyes of their weavers have made the couch of 
 my mistress downy. Every pleasure which I deny 
 myself means that a day s work of some ancestor 
 was done for nothing. 
 
 OVERSEER. Think of these roads they built, these 
 dams and granaries of hewn stone. We use them 
 while they last, and, instead of repairing them, 
 spend our surplus on baths and pavilions. Yonder 
 our fathers ditched morasses into meadows; and 
 now the children gulp down the profits and let the 
 meadow sink back into a morass. They are so 
 busy squandering money in midnight banquets 
 that they cannot stop for mending a rotten sluice to 
 preserve the patrimony of their children. 
 
 MERCHANT. Tis meadow yet; twill last our 
 lifetime. (Aside to Javan.) But tap one of these 
 ancient barrels with hoary cobwebs around its chin, 
 and out spurt the praises of "the good old days." 
 (Aloud.) You have a wide variety here in your 
 farming. 
 
 OVERSEER. We raise everything which the mar 
 ket demands; all kinds of drugs, from lotus and 
 poppy for making your friend happy to hemlock 
 and strychnine for making your enemy sad; wines 
 and sauces in abundance; and all these other new 
 fangled notions which, after a thousand years of 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 43 
 
 comfort, men have suddenly discovered to be neces 
 sities of life. Also our hillsides rear boys and 
 women, though they grow not on stalks; but that 
 lucrative industry is a special perquisite of others 
 than the landlord. 
 
 JAVAN (aside). Is this the tillage which re 
 places the sweet gums and orchards of Eden? 
 (Aloud.) What parodies of humanity come here? 
 
 [Enter six laborers. ] 
 
 OVERSEER. Yonder men are laborers on the 
 estate. 
 
 MERCHANT. What a dog s life is that ! Why do 
 these fools persist in living when they re so cadav 
 erous that the light shines through them? 
 
 OVERSEER. For the same reason that your fine 
 nobles persist in living when their nerves are so 
 racked with feasting that hell squirms through 
 them. 
 
 JAVAN. What work can so deface the body God 
 made ? 
 
 OVERSEER. No two have the same. The first 
 works in the poppy fields ; the second s a mason on 
 the new villa ; the third raises herbs for a sauce ; the 
 fourth cultivates silkworms for ladies mantels; 
 and the last two serve the cause of art. 
 
 JAVAN. How so? 
 
 OVERSEER. One of them quarries out marble for 
 
44 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 our finest sculptors, and the other forges metal for 
 the best harps in the city. 
 
 JAVAN. Did they ever see statue or hear harp ? 
 
 OVERSEER. They see nothing but work and 
 hear nothing but threats. How else should I raise 
 my lord s revenue? 
 
 JAVAN. And how long do they last before 
 nature takes pity on them? 
 
 OVERSEER. Some three years, some five. There 
 are plenty more when these are gone. 
 
 MERCHANT. I confess that I am never more 
 happy than in the presence of these wretches; for 
 then, like one whose fortunes are safe while 
 another s are burning, I thrill with the sense of my 
 own blessedness. What says the song of Bahran? 
 
 Life that is pink in the sky and the maiden s cheek, 
 
 And the peach when it flowers, 
 Life that has tasted much and has more to seek, 
 
 Is ours, is ours. 
 
 What the grudging old gods had meant for the 
 many, distills 
 
 Its bliss for the few. 
 
 The vineyards and fruits that grow on a thousand 
 hills 
 
 Are for me and you. 
 
 Leave the bird in the net, 
 
 And the bud o er the scythe; 
 
 Let the laborer sweat, 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 45 
 
 And the sufferer writhe; 
 To the camel his load, 
 To the Sethite his code ; 
 But the dream of the magic herb, and our myrtle 
 
 bowers, 
 Where we eat of the substance of others, are glad, 
 
 and forget, 
 All that Old Eden possessed, and what Eden ne er 
 
 showed, 
 Are ours, are ours. 
 
 Well, let us go in. There s a fearful storm 
 mustering overhead; pray heaven it hurt not my 
 crops or buildings ! 
 
 OVERSEER (moving away, while a faint gleam of 
 light gives his face a momentary likeness to a 
 death s-head). I will report, sir, in the morning, 
 that we may take a survey of your new property 
 together. 
 
 [Exeunt overseer and merchant.] 
 
 JAVAN. What men are these, whose rustic cots 
 
 have life 
 Wondrous and wicked as the town s itself? 
 
 [He sits down in a small arbor which conceals him 
 from the center of the scene.] 
 
 The fatal hours run on, yet wherefore fear? 
 Things worse there are than death, that threaten 
 here. 
 
46 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 FIRST LABORER. Ugh! I m tired. 
 
 SECOND LABORER. Rain coming. 
 
 THIRD LABORER. Let it come. 
 
 FOURTH LABORER. Give me a mouthful. I ve 
 no food. 
 
 FIRST LABORER. Not I. 
 
 SECOND LABORER. Nor I. 
 
 THIRD LABORER. Every man for himself. 
 
 FOURTH LABORER. No drink either? I m faint. 
 
 FIRST LABORER. None to spare. 
 
 FOURTH LABORER. I ve worked day and night. 
 
 SECOND LABORER. Who hasn t? 
 
 FOURTH LABORER. One drink, as you d like it 
 yourself. 
 
 THIRD LABORER. Not I. Will your guzzling 
 wet my gullet? 
 
 FIFTH LABORER, Wild night up there. 
 
 SIXTH LABORER. What s the difference to us ? 
 
 FIRST LABORER. We work, rain or shine. 
 
 SECOND LABORER. Look there. (Shows broken 
 hand.) 
 
 THIRD LABORER. Well, what of it ? 
 
 SECOND LABORER. That s what we masons have 
 to work with. 
 
 FIRST LABORER. That s nothing. Look what we 
 do. 
 
 FIFTH LABORER. Raise lotus and poppies? 
 
 FIRST LABORER. Break men s backs to put 
 gentlemen dreaming. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 47 
 
 FOURTH LABORER. Got any lotus ? 
 
 FIRST LABORER. Some I stole. No, you don t 
 get it. 
 
 THIRD LABORER. And we kill ourselves to make 
 a sauce. 
 
 SIXTH LABORER. What for? 
 
 THIRD LABORER. To make gentlemen hungry. 
 
 FOURTH LABORER. Let them fast. 
 
 SECOND LABORER. Not they; they re always 
 feasting. 
 
 THIRD LABORER. And the sauce keeps them 
 healthy and hungry. 
 
 FIFTH LABORER. Yes, and poor men starve a 
 year to get them one meal of birds tongues. 
 
 THIRD LABORER. That what you do ? 
 
 FIFTH LABORER. Not now. Working in quarry. 
 See there. (Shows scars.) 
 
 SIXTH LABORER. Stone for building? 
 
 FIFTH LABORER. No, statues. 
 
 FOURTH LABORER. One leaf of poppy? 
 
 FIRST LABORER. Get out! Can t you earn your 
 own supper? 
 
 FOURTH LABORER. I ought to. I work hard 
 enough. 
 
 FIRST LABORER. Doing what? 
 
 FOURTH LABORER. Weaving silk mantels. I m 
 going blind at it. 
 
 SIXTH LABORER. So am I. 
 
 SECOND LABORER. What, working in the forge? 
 
48 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 SIXTH LABORER. Yes, the glare burns my eyes. 
 
 THIRD LABORER. Ugh, I dreamed I was a lord 
 last night. 
 
 FIRST LABORER. The more fool you. 
 
 THIRD LABORER. Kept others working while I 
 feasted. Twas fine. 
 
 FIFTH LABORER. Dreams go by contraries. 
 
 THIRD LABORER. Thought I got angry and 
 killed two of them. 
 
 SIXTH LABORER. Look out or they ll kill you. 
 
 SECOND LABORER. Much he d care or any of us. 
 
 FIRST LABORER. That s right. What good s life 
 to us? 
 
 FOURTH LABORER. If I could only go to sleep 
 to-night and know I d never wake up again, I d be 
 happy. 
 
 SIXTH LABORER. So would I. 
 
 THIRD LABORER. Only I wish the rich could die 
 too to make things even. 
 
 FIFTH LABORER. No hope of that. Come, we ll 
 crawl off to our kennels. 
 
 SIXTH LABORER. And to work again in the 
 morning. 
 
 [Exeunt laborers. Enter Irad, Tubal-cain, Adah 
 and ferryman.] 
 
 FERRYMAN. Be not angry, sir ; tis a slight delay. 
 We had not dreamed that any would tempt the 
 ferry to-night. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 49 
 
 TUBAL. Sit down, man, and be calm. We have 
 driven as if Panic were our jockey. Your lunatic 
 haste will mean nothing but final delay. To brain 
 our guide for misleading us, that is a hopeful way 
 of making speed. 
 
 IRAD. Ah, you know not what Terror pursues 
 me. But indeed I meant not to kill him. 
 
 FERRYMAN. Step within, sirs, and be sheltered. 
 The boat will be here in a moment. 
 
 [Exeunt all except Irad and Adah. They seat 
 themselves near the arbor, in which Javan 
 remains unseen.] 
 
 IRAD, Nay, Adah, stay with me ; this bench for 
 
 us. 
 
 Love keeps apart and private. Twine our fingers. 
 We plunge in darkness ; and we ll feel, like children, 
 Less frightened hand in hand. 
 
 ADAH. How black it grows, 
 
 How wild o erhead ! Strange air for Niloh s night. 
 Thy flesh is cold that should be warm with love. 
 Is t weariness or fear? 
 
 IRAD. Press closer, love ; 
 
 Let thy warm bosom beat away my fear. 
 What think st thou, Adah if our death be nigh, 
 Is life beyond the grave? 
 
 ADAH. Oh, far beyond 
 
 Our quick, warm youth the grave. Why should we 
 vex 
 
50 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 Our soul for what s beyond that dim beyond? 
 Here grow the flowers of love to-night, and thus 
 I pluck them while they bloom. 
 
 I RAD. May they be green 
 
 In memory long. But sleepless visions here, 
 Upleaping from the downy present, pace 
 The cold, dark, echoing future. 
 
 ADAH. Morbid fancies. 
 
 Recall that nursery rime the children sing: 
 
 The present is a festal bark, 
 In which we float o er waters dark. 
 While in the present still we dwell 
 The banquet waits and all is well. 
 When from the present forth we leap 
 We drown in ocean strange and deep. 
 
 We ll change our theme. My too forgetful lover 
 Did never ask me how the moments fled 
 When he was absent. 
 
 IRAD. Let me hear thee tell; 
 
 Twill charm my gloom away. 
 
 ADAH. Long every hour 
 
 Unshared with thee, and sad. I never knew 
 How mournful harp and flute, how empty seem 
 The marble hallway and the echoing stair 
 Till then. And waking lonely, I have often 
 Clasped the cold moonlight reaching out for thee, 
 Pressed my warm bosom on the chilly paving, 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 51 
 
 And buried in the unresponsive night 
 The kiss that begged return. 
 
 IRAD. No more thou shalt ; 
 
 Forgive me, love. Were all thy kindred kind? 
 Were wealth and comfort yours ? 
 
 ADAH. Unbounded wealth, 
 
 All ancient Elmin owned ; for Elmin s dead, 
 And we his heirs. 
 
 IRAD. Old age has claimed him then? 
 
 ADAH. It might be age, or else an ointed gown 
 My brother gave him when he lived too long. 
 I never asked, not I. You shudder, dear; 
 Is it the damp night wind? 
 
 IRAD. No, no, go on. 
 
 ADAH. But bitter twas to watch the love of 
 
 others, 
 
 Happy while I was loveless ; when dim night 
 Barred out the world s intrusion, to remember 
 What was and what might be. Eldanah s palace 
 Lay next to ours. He and his gentle lady 
 Were glad as once were we. 
 
 IRAD. Did not Eldanah, 
 
 For so I heard, wed his own daughter? 
 
 ADAH. Yes. 
 
 Why not ? Tis common now. They grew together 
 Like bough and bud. Heaven willed it. 
 
 IRAD (aside). Did it so? 
 
 And what said Noah then, and Noah s God ? 
 
52 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 ADAH. True love was that. They prized each 
 
 other dearly; 
 
 And when he perished, murdered, none know how, 
 His daughter pined and died, and sleeps with him. 
 
 IRAD. Know st thou what Noah would have told 
 
 thee, Adah, 
 Had he but heard? 
 
 ADAH. I half believe I know. 
 
 IRAD. He would have said like breath from 
 
 charnels blew 
 
 Through thy dear lips the life that God forbade ; 
 And, quoting God, had told what murder means, 
 And incest; what dread ripples roll from them, 
 Which make them crime. He d ask how you so 
 
 calmly 
 
 Could plaster o er the stain of blood, and paint 
 The bridal blush on love s unnatural leer. 
 
 ADAH. And would his whilom pupil say it too ? 
 
 IRAD. I might, but words are breath. 
 
 ADAH. Hast thou unlearned 
 
 Thy former life ? Hadst thou been Elmin s heir, 
 Poor, one old man between thy hopes and thee, 
 And he the man of men thy soul did hate, 
 Here tedious prose and his triumphant sneer, 
 And there delight and revel and revenge, 
 Would Elmin live? Couldst thou not hear the call 
 Of life and freedom summoning to enjoy? 
 Already thou hast heard it, at its call 
 Shed Enoch s blood, as others that of Elmin. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 53 
 
 [Javan starts violently.] 
 Or had I been thy daughter, dear as now, 
 Would st thou inquire what fountain poured the 
 
 wave 
 That cooled thy thirst? Oh, you have learned by 
 
 heart 
 
 Some parrot words; but look on life itself 
 As these beheld it ; glad are Elmin s heirs, 
 Sweet was Eldanah s love. Wilt thou recant 
 The creed of years ? Canst thou not feel as I ? 
 
 IRAD. And if I could, God give me strength to 
 
 keep 
 That feeling ever dumb! 
 
 ADAH. Again you shudder, 
 
 As though with fear. 
 
 IRAD. Know you the fairy tale 
 
 We heard as children, how a mermaid dwelt 
 With men till she grew human? But one day, 
 On the blue edge of ocean, while she heard 
 Its far^ unearthly music calling, calling, 
 The strange old longing of the deep came back, 
 And drew her downward, half as mermaid longing 
 For that dim fatherland, and half as mortal 
 Afraid to drown. And while she felt the waters 
 Roll deeper, deeper as they claimed her, then 
 She shuddered too. 
 
 ADAH. But yet became a mermaid. 
 
 IRAD. No, there the story halted. If I tell it 
 To son of mine, how shall I end it, how? 
 
54 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 [Unnoticed by them, Javan steals from the arbor, 
 and moves to the other side of the scene, where 
 he meets an attendant.] 
 
 JAVAN. Are you lord Irad s man ? 
 
 ATTENDANT. I am. 
 
 JAVAN. I pray you, 
 
 If he shall ask you for a friend called Javan, 
 Tell him these words of mine : There is a legend 
 That Lucifer and Michael love each other, 
 But never meet nor can, so clash and jar 
 The adverse worlds in which they move; and I 
 Love Irad ever, but we meet no more. 
 Goodby. I ride for Noah s mountain. 
 
 ATTENDANT. Stay, 
 
 My youthful lord. The night is wild ; ere dawn 
 Streams will be freshets and the bridges lost. 
 You risk your life to go. 
 
 JAVAN. I dare not stay. 
 
 If fortune aid me I shall live to-morrow. 
 But if I die, and future ages know 
 Three sons of Noah only, better that 
 Than what is here. Forget not thou my message. 
 
 [He moves on and vanishes in the darkness. Enter 
 Tubal-cain and ferryman.] 
 
 TUBAL. The boat is ready. But by my advice 
 Here shall we bide. I never viewed a sky 
 Like that to westward. Come but here and look. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 55 
 
 Earth seems not earth beneath it. Here are herds 
 men, 
 
 Who swear the sea is loose, and tidal waves 
 Abroad on inland plains. Hark ! was that thunder, 
 Or earthquake s rumble? 
 
 FERRYMAN. Yonder cloud will burst, 
 
 A liquid avalanche. Mark the sapling crouch, 
 The lake blown into white-caps. Rushing mist 
 Rides up the peak before us. You are mad 
 To journey further. 
 
 IRAD. Those are mad who stay. 
 
 Death gallops fast behind our heels. Away! 
 
 (Exeunt.) 
 CURTAIN. 
 
ACT III. 
 
 TIME. The small hours of the morning on the 
 same night. 
 
 PLACE. A cave part way up Mount Himenay. 
 It is dark, save for the faint gleam of lightning that 
 comes through the entrance. A fearful uproar, 
 though somewhat muffled, is heard from without. A 
 narrow passage winds back into further recesses of 
 the cave ; and from here comes the noise of fighting 
 and dying groans. 
 
 Enter Mizraim from the passage, as if in fear. 
 He hides in a cleft of the rock. Enter a 
 wounded man, who falls with a groan and dies. 
 The noise within grows less, and is wholly lost 
 in the roar of the storm. Then enter from 
 without Irad carrying Adah, Tubal-cain, Jared 
 carried by servants f and several attendants. ] 
 
 IRAD. Hello! 
 
 OTHERS. Hello ! 
 
 IRAD. A cave. Turn in and halt. 
 
 AN ATTENDANT. This rain is more than human 
 
 strength can bear. 
 
 It weighs us down like pushing hands. My god ! 
 How good it seems to rest ! Will nothing lift 
 This blinding bandage of the night? 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 57 
 
 TUBAL. A torch. 
 
 Be careful there ; the wind will blow it out. 
 
 IRAD. More torches, quick, beneath this boulder s 
 
 lee. 
 
 Hold one above her face ; I think she swooned. 
 Stand over it ; the air comes eddying down, 
 And makes it flare. 
 
 AN ATTENDANT. It blows a hurricane. 
 
 ANOTHER ATTENDANT. What awful medley of 
 
 unearthly sounds 
 
 Is that keeps rolling from the plain below 
 Through this blind horror? Oh, for one short 
 
 glimpse 
 
 Of what earth looks like now ! The very flashes 
 Are drowned in rain, one solid mass of blackness. 
 What s that which happens down below? Who 
 
 tells? 
 IRAD. Here, fold my cloak together for her 
 
 pillow, 
 
 And give me yours to wrap her. Bring some wine. 
 She stirs; her eyes are opening. 
 
 ADAH. Where am I? 
 
 IRAD. Safe here with me ; we re on Mount Him- 
 
 enay. 
 
 ADAH. Is the rain ended? 
 
 IRAD. No, we re in a cave. 
 
 JARED. Hark, Irad, Tubal-cain, do you not hear 
 Through all the rushing of the storm, and splash 
 Of driving water ? Hark, what sounds are those ? 
 
58 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 I RAD. You re happy not to know. 
 
 TUBAL (going to the entrance). More fast and 
 
 keen 
 
 It lightens; now well tell what floods are loose. 
 There comes a flash would light the ocean bed 
 Through solid brine, and shows 
 
 JARED. What, what? (No answer.) 
 
 Speak, man. 
 
 IRAD (going to entrance). All black again. I ll 
 tell you when it comes. 
 
 JARED. There, there! That peal was like a 
 
 crashing world. 
 
 You must have seen* (Pause.) Speak, Irad, where 
 are you? 
 
 IRAD. I m at thy side; and, as for what I ve seen, 
 Bless Heaven that made thee blind. 
 
 JARED. Thy voice is hollow, 
 
 Like breath from Horror s chamber. Where s thy 
 
 hand ? 
 Tis Irad s hand. Go on. 
 
 IRAD. Before I fled 
 
 From Noah s tent, they told me, and confirmed, 
 No matter how, that that dread God of theirs, 
 Incensed at earth for His neglected shrine, 
 Prepared to-night to drown the world. I fled ; 
 And with such frail excuse as time allowed 
 By lies have led you up this mountain peak, 
 And saved you so. For know that Noah s God 
 Has kept His word. Already fathoms deep, 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 59 
 
 And deeper every moment, whirl the floods 
 O er Nod and all its people. 
 
 JARED. You are mad! 
 
 Speak, friends, where are you all? It cannot be. 
 Oh, for one hour of blessed sight to know 
 What things and whom to trust ! 
 
 IRAD. Can you not hear? 
 
 Is that dread sound that slowly gathering grows 
 Aught that you ever heard in life before? 
 
 TUBAL. Tis true, old man. What forces are 
 
 at work 
 Let priests inquire ; but all the world is sea. 
 
 ADAH. Where art thou, Irad ? What alarms you 
 all? 
 
 IRAD. Say nothing yet. {To Adah.) Rest, 
 
 dear, we all are safe. 
 
 Tis a wild night, and tragic things, I fear, 
 Have happened elsewhere; but they touch not us. 
 
 ADAH. The hour of love has rung. We ll build 
 
 our bower 
 
 In some dim grotto winding far within. 
 Hast thou forgot what hallowed night is this, 
 Made doubly dear by waiting? 
 
 IRAD. Nay, but years 
 
 Remain for that; postpone all pleasure now. 
 O Adah, this has been a fearful night; 
 And dying groans are floating up the sky 
 As thick as rain. 
 
 ADAH. But we, we are alive. 
 
60 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 IRAD. I m sick at heart. Nay, Adah, talk no 
 
 more 
 
 Of love to-night, but tend me as a nurse, 
 That, lapsing back to childhood, I may lose 
 All memory of the present. 
 
 ADAH. What strange mood 
 
 Is this on Niloh s eve ? Yet have your will, 
 For, truth, your eyes are lit with fever s gleam. 
 Untimely thoughts are there, like stars of night 
 In wells at noonday. Rest, 111 be thy nurse. 
 
 \Tubal-cain in examining the cave discovers Miz- 
 raim. ] 
 
 TUBAL. Who s here? 
 
 MIZRAIM. Oh, mercy, grant me mercy, sir! 
 
 TUBAL. Come here and show your face. A 
 
 stripling boy. 
 
 Why skulk these dainty limbs in such a den 
 On night as wild as this ? 
 
 MIZRAIM. But spare my life. 
 
 TUBAL. Perhaps I will when thou canst show me 
 
 cause. 
 
 March here between the torches, full in view, 
 In our mid circle. Throw thy weapon down. 
 And now be prompt and pointed when I ask. 
 First then, your name. 
 
 MIZRAIM. Mizraim. 
 
 TUBAL. Your parents who ? 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 61 
 
 MIZRAIM. None know but Niloh, from whose 
 rites I sprung. 
 
 TUBAL. A goodly pedigree, yea, common too 
 In our abstemious race. How came you here? 
 
 MIZRAIM. I marched among the rebel host of 
 
 late. 
 
 And when our army broke and scattered wide 
 Before Togarmah, here the remnant fled, 
 A handful merely. Here the others died 
 This very night, and I was left alone. 
 
 TUBAL. How died they all? 
 
 MIZRAIM. In quarrel o er the spoil, 
 
 Which rose at feast when heads were hot with wine. 
 Perhaps you doubt my word ; then come with me 
 Down yonder passage. There youll find them all 
 Still palpitating, warm, nay, some in whom 
 Yet lingers life. 
 
 TUBAL. Go on, I follow thee, 
 
 My knife against thy neck. Deceive me not. 
 
 [Exeunt Tubal-cain and Mizraim.~\ 
 
 IRAD. Draw back in darkness. 
 
 ADAH. Why unsheathe your blade, 
 
 And point your j avelin at that line of light ? 
 The dead are harmless. 
 
 IRAD. And the living, liars. 
 
 Behind me, love ; I would not for the world 
 Have ill betide thee. 
 
 ADAH. Thou art brave and strong; 
 
62 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 And Tubal-cain is of the giants old. 
 Why need we fear? 
 
 IRAD. I fear not for myself. 
 
 God bless thee, Adah. Ne er till danger s hour 
 Knew I how dear I held thee. Here they come. 
 
 [Re-enter Tubal-cain and MizraimJ\ 
 
 TUBAL. Well, such is human folly. There they 
 
 lie 
 
 Amid the wealth they died for, piled like logs 
 In rotten woodlands, every fool in turn 
 A murderer and a victim. 
 
 JARED. All are dead? 
 
 TUBAL. Some dead, some dying, all past mischief 
 now. 
 
 IRAD. Methought I heard them groan. Twere 
 
 mercy s part 
 To ease their dying hours. 
 
 TUBAL. Nay, let them lie ; 
 
 They re nought to us. Now, sir, come here again. 
 I fought with those before Togarmah s fort, 
 Your adversary there. What blight came down 
 To shrivel up your fine array so fast ? 
 We looked defeat in the face ; and, presto ! change ! 
 Our dread snow-man had melted. 
 
 MIZRAIM. Those rich valleys 
 
 Were too indulgent for a soldier s life. 
 And drinking deep all joys of nature there, 
 We lost our pith and edge; found pleasure soft, 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 63 
 
 Ambition hard and foolish; passed the word 
 From ear to ear, till our whole host became 
 A martial farce, a flimsy, painted cloth, 
 Which war s first rumor blew to tatters. 
 
 TUBAL. So. 
 
 A set of puny boys, whom pleasure melts 
 Like ice in August. We old veterans, too, 
 We had our joys; but we could stand the pace. 
 Yet, half our army being young like you, 
 Had you but charged that night instead of fleeing, 
 You had found us rotten ramparts. Such is life. 
 W T ell, sit you there. Well give you orders later. 
 
 IRAD. Is this the nation of the giants, Nod, 
 Whose armies, like colliding thunder-clouds, 
 Jarred earth in meeting ? Have we fallen to this ? 
 
 TUBAL. Oh, we have warriors yet can whack a 
 
 helmet, 
 
 Old hoary-heads; but these green boys are fog. 
 Just sixty years ago that very field 
 Saw such a shocking where our armies clashed 
 As would have stunned them with its noise alone. 
 
 [Enter from without Iban and several revelers.~\ 
 
 I BAN. If ye be men whom e er compunction 
 
 touched, 
 
 Beauty, or love of art, receive us kindly. 
 I am the poet Iban, these my friends, 
 Shipwrecked but now against this mountain s base, 
 
64 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 Half dead from bruising rock and pounding wave, 
 And rain that weighs like lead. 
 
 IRAD. Tis he himself. 
 
 Welcome, old friend, familiar faces here 
 You see, and kindred bosoms. 
 
 IBAN. Praise the gods ! 
 
 What, Irad, Tubal-cain, can this be true? 
 The muses guard their own. 
 
 TUBAL. Sit down, sit down. 
 
 You re white and pant like deer. 
 
 IBAN. Have ye a fire? 
 
 I ve ocean dripping from my back; and all 
 The clouds of heaven have soaked me. 
 
 IRAD. Nought but torches. 
 
 MIZRAIM. So please you, sir, within the further 
 
 cave 
 
 Is fuel plenty. Only give the word, 
 This crevice was our fireplace. 
 
 IRAD. Quickly then. 
 
 [Mizraim brings out fuel from within and starts a 
 fire.] 
 
 IBAN. What boy is that? 
 
 IRAD. Last of a bandit gang ; 
 
 The rest have killed each other. 
 
 IBAN. What s his future? 
 
 Do you adopt him ? 
 
 IRAD. Twas but now we found him. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 65 
 
 TUBAL. Nay, no adopting waif and stranger 
 
 here 
 
 To load us down. We ll use his wits to-night, 
 To-morrow end him. 
 
 JARED. Ay, the simplest way. 
 
 We ve servants all we need. 
 
 IRAD. Now God forbid ! 
 
 Is he not human, feeling joy and grief 
 To which our natures echo, kindred man ? 
 
 TUBAL. Why, yes, he has a heart, a pair of 
 
 lungs, 
 
 Like us or wolves or jackals. What of that? 
 He ll profit nought to me ; if you enj oy him, 
 Why, keep him then. 
 
 JARED. Twill be another mouth. 
 
 Why stint our guests and us for God knows who ? 
 
 IRAD. Is there no joy in grateful eyes, no pang 
 In dying groans, when dreams identify 
 Our lives with those we mold? 
 
 TUBAL. Why should there be? 
 
 This comes from Noah, sounds like old wives tales 
 Of amputated stumps and aching limbs. 
 
 IBAN. Ay, Noah s folly. Sweeter far is love 
 When focused warm, intense in narrow ring, 
 Than thus diffused. 
 
 TUBAL. "Glad homes," the proverb says, 
 
 "Are lined with love and moated round with blood." 
 
 IBAN. Friend, favorite, mistress, these are magic 
 words ; 
 
66 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 Outside, what matters ? Yet this boy is fair ; 
 And beauty is too rare and hardly won 
 For reckless usage. Let us keep him still. 
 
 JARED. Ay, now you mention it, his step is light, 
 And soft his voice as woman s. Fair, you say. 
 Would I could see him. 
 
 TUBAL. Ah, our reverend friend 
 
 Begins to feel the spell of Niloh s mount. 
 
 JARED. Come hither, lad. (Mizraim ap 
 proaches.) Thou rt comely, I am told. 
 The only eyes which blindness has are these, 
 That yet would view thy beauty. {Feels his face.) 
 
 Every line 
 
 Like chiseled marble ; and this healthy warmth 
 Declares the blush of youth. I like thee well. 
 What say st thou, lad? Wilt thou be friends with 
 
 me, 
 
 The solace of my age, as Bahran s boy 
 Was joy to him? 
 
 MIZRAIM (with a quick glance around). Yea, 
 sir, if so you will. 
 
 IRAD. Sir, I implore you, let this matter wait. 
 In hourly danger still, no time have we 
 For aught but vigilance to save our lives. 
 Our safety s first of all. 
 
 TUBAL. The lad is right. 
 
 All things in proper time. Hear reason, man. 
 And you, gay youngster, shall be butler here, 
 For your dead band had cellars. Come with me. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 67 
 
 [During the following dialogue between Irad and 
 Iban, Mizraim and the attendants, under the 
 direction of Tubal-cain f bring in from the 
 further cavern an extemporized banquet table, 
 and load it with all the paraphernalia belong 
 ing to a splendid feast.] 
 
 IBAN (aside to Irad}. A sickening offer, dotage 
 
 wooing fear, 
 
 And profanation of that tender tie 
 For which poor Bahran died. 
 
 IRAD (aside to Iban). The scene fits well 
 
 With that outside. If eyes above look down 
 What thoughts must be in heaven. 
 
 IBAN. Yea, the gods 
 
 Will smile behind the scenes. Yet, after all, 
 So dear the hours of youth and young delight, 
 Who d blame the old, though loth to let them go ? 
 
 IRAD. How shall I judge a man who callous thus, 
 Yea, o er the deathbed of his fatherland, 
 Affronts both God and nature s whispering law ? 
 And this but sample of a lifetime gone, 
 As well I know. 
 
 Yet not through blood alone but deeper ties 
 He bids me pause in judgment. That gray beard 
 Has wagged above my boyhood s play, and drooped 
 Tear-drenched o er beds of fever. Hours I ve sat 
 Perched on his knee, while we like statesmen 
 weighed 
 
68 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 The worth of hobby-horses, balls, and drums. 
 Tin catapults and bastions. Then in youth 
 My exploits made him weep with joy; he d cheer me 
 Did I compete for prize in dance or song, 
 And hang the tiger s pelt with golden claws 
 Because his boy had killed it. Gracious heaven ! 
 When thus the flower and stinking weed entwine, 
 Which shall we count the man ? 
 
 IBAN. You re too severe. 
 
 View human follies close with candid eye, 
 Not thus through Noah s twisted lens, you ll find 
 The sin that plucks an apple through a fence 
 Is venial, ay, and universal too. 
 The strife twixt law and longing sweetens life, 
 And there romance is born. 
 
 I RAD. So once thought I. 
 
 I had begun to reason otherwise. 
 
 IBAN. This mystery life is like a lovely girl, 
 Who cries, "You shall not," when she hopes you 
 
 will, 
 
 Rewards the bold transgressor well, and chills 
 Sheep-eyed Obedience with her frosty praise. 
 And toward her genial warmth I stretch my hands, 
 As toward this welcome flame. 
 
 TUBAL. Now, gentle friends, 
 
 Our neighbors having piled our board, and then 
 By opportune demise removed themselves, 
 We ll banquet even here. 
 
 IRAD. What! here a feast! 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 69 
 
 IBAN. The gods be praised! ne er needed like 
 
 to-night. 
 
 Here s food to cheer the faint, and kindly wine 
 To laugh our horrors down. 
 
 TUBAL. Be seated all. 
 
 THE REVELERS. On Niloh s mount the god pro 
 vides his own. 
 
 TUBAL. One place is vacant. 
 
 IBAN. Why does Irad wait ? 
 
 IRAD. Go on nor notice me; I m not in mood 
 For revelry to-night. 
 
 TUBAL. Nay, come, lad, come. 
 
 What sullen devil lurks in you of late ? 
 
 IBAN. Your empty place will haunt us, like the 
 
 chair 
 
 In Bahran s lay. Come, you look dark as men 
 Who weigh some tragic matter pro and con. 
 The sadder earth, the more we need what cheers. 
 Sit down and laugh with us. 
 
 IRAD. I m not in mood. 
 
 ADAH. Art thou in mood to please a lady s wish, 
 And one to whom thou owest grace as well 
 For cold refusal past ? Shall I alone 
 Have emptiness for partner ? Noble sir, 
 I do entreat thy company at feast. 
 
 IRAD. Hast thou forgot what night it is ? 
 
 ADAH. Nay, nay, 
 
 Tis thou forgettest; this is Niloh s night. 
 Be earth undone ; but let our rosy ring 
 
70 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 Be pleasure s magic circle, friendship s, love s; 
 On that enchanted ground no noxious thing 
 Intrude, or painful thought. Two talismans 
 I offer thee, of power to make this den 
 Appear a palace, we the king and queen. 
 The one this cup contains ; perchance my lip 
 Might hold the other. 
 
 IRAD. How thou gildest o er 
 
 What seemed corruption. Which the trulier sees, 
 The eye bewitched by Noah or by thee ? 
 
 ADAH. Which one, indeed? Be thou impartial 
 
 judge. 
 
 And if thou deem st my magic more than his, 
 Be pleased to come with me. 
 
 I RAD. Ah, well, I yield. 
 
 Thy witchery s more, be wisdom where it will. 
 
 IBAN. A toast, a toast! the victor comes and 
 
 brings 
 Her captive train behind. 
 
 ALL. A toast, a toast! 
 
 IBAN. Pour, servant, pour. The night may rave 
 
 without ; 
 
 What care we now how leap and howl beneath 
 The baffled hounds of ocean ? 
 
 REVELERS. Doubly sweet 
 
 Is safety after danger. 
 
 IBAN. Ay, it is. 
 
 This warms the blood. I shudder when I think, 
 Had I remained below, what cold blue hand 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 71 
 
 Had drawn my morning curtains, and what face 
 Peered in on mine. 
 
 IRAD. Who brought you safely here? 
 
 IBAN. A power that willed not Cain should cease 
 
 to be. 
 
 The lure of ocean drew us. Three whole days 
 We sailed the main, while like a sounding shell 
 Our vessel rang with music. Then arose 
 This awful storm that hurled the sea on land, 
 And us therewith, swept o er the drowned domain, 
 The billows plaything. Last on rocks below, 
 Once inland cliff but now the ocean s edge, 
 We dashed and shattered. Yet such grace was ours 
 From god in love with art, or pitying muse, 
 Entire our band were saved, though all the rest, 
 Page, woman, slave, and brawny seaman, drowned. 
 
 IRAD. Not one of all your number gone ? 
 
 IBAN. Not one, 
 
 Though ne er alive through such a boiling foam, 
 Methinks, came man before. 
 
 IRAD. A priest would deem 
 
 Some special providence of gods indeed 
 Had held you worthy saving. 
 
 IBAN. Yea, for we, 
 
 Though humble lamps, preserved the ancient flame 
 That ocean else had quenched. 
 
 IRAD. I drink to thee, 
 
 Whom- powers inscrutable have chosen thus 
 Ambassador from former worlds to new. 
 
72 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 Drink deep; I ll drink with thee, till in the cup 
 We find thy message for the men unborn. 
 
 FIRST REVELER. Peace, peace, ye yelping clouds. 
 
 Have we no harp 
 Of power to drown their discord ? 
 
 SECOND REVELER, Sheathe your fires, 
 
 Ye hunters of the night ; the game is flown. 
 
 THIRD REVELER. Let ocean bellow, while the 
 
 mountain laughs, 
 And makes its rage a foot-bath. 
 
 IRAD (aside). Yet one sound 
 
 Ye cannot hush nor mock, the kindred cry, 
 Now shrill as if beneath the murderer s blow, 
 Now myriad-voiced in ocean. Fill the bowl. 
 These others drink and hear it not. Drink thou. 
 For ne er till abstinence unbraced thine ear 
 Heard st thou or heeded. 
 
 ADAH. Fearful must have been 
 
 The scenes you witnessed, Iban, sailing thus 
 O er what was happening yonder. 
 
 IBAN. Fearful, strange. 
 
 I know not whether theme of future verse, 
 Or memory dread to paralyze all song 
 In me forever. Dim and foggy broke 
 That fatal morning. Sultry heaven sucked 
 The moisture of the deep in rolling mist, 
 That steamed aloft unceasing, wall on wall, 
 To one gray roof. There all day long we rowed 
 Through cloudy corridors, down whispering aisles, 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 73 
 
 Whose waters murmured low, like multitudes 
 When hushed in some great awe. But close on 
 
 night 
 
 Wind, mild at first but freshening keen and fast, 
 And shouldering Titan-like the clouds along, 
 Went blowing inland. Dark the world became; 
 And sounds mysterious under ocean ran, 
 Like noise of crunching rocks or settling walls 
 When props are knocked away. Then heaving 
 
 deep, 
 
 As if its bed were tilted up, while sank 
 The land in equal scale, whate er the cause, 
 The mighty stream rolled inland. Earth beneath 
 Convulsive groaning heaved the liquid hills, 
 That far subsiding rolled. Overhead was storm, 
 Black cloud and lightning flash, a roof of night, 
 Whose rafters all were fire; while yet the rain 
 Hung pendulous, nor fell. Now on our lee 
 Loomed up the halls of Cain, like rocks awash, 
 Beneath that awful gleam. The crawling brine 
 Had filled their streets; and waves like battering- 
 rams 
 
 Demolished home and fane. On beetling roofs, 
 Yet stedfast, jutting dark against the fire, 
 Moved frantic forms, whose cry methought I heard 
 Through stormy miles between. Then fell the rain 
 In tumbling rivers, making earth and sky 
 One formless blot. 
 
 ADAH. Ah, may my sleep to-night 
 
74 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 Be free of dreams ; for if a vision came 
 What pictures might it draw. 
 
 IBAN. These eyes could weep 
 
 A second flood for what the first destroyed. 
 I saw the marble domes a thousand years 
 Had built with toil of thousands, hewing flat 
 Whole mountains for the stone, I saw them racked 
 From their foundations; arch and aqueduct, 
 The marvels of all time, in frothy foam 
 Made scaffolding for coral. Park and lawn, 
 The walks we loved, far rides along the hills, 
 Wide stretch of landscape flecked with countless 
 
 homes, 
 All now are nothing. 
 
 IRAD. Just beyond the town 
 
 A villa lay where I was born and reared. 
 I knew its every acre, every curve 
 Of slope or river; twas my world, twas home. 
 Such ties the Deluge broke. 
 
 A REVELER. Fill high the bowl, 
 
 Else Goodman Gloom may tweak our nose. Drink 
 
 deep; 
 
 Old Lady Care would edge into our midst; 
 We ll send her packing. 
 
 IBAN. Ay, you re right, you re right. 
 
 Enjoy the fire that burns; the fire that s cold 
 Will ne er inspire the young nor warm the old. 
 
 TUBAL. The night is done. Let now the cup of 
 sleep, 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 75 
 
 Infused with drowsy lotus, walk its round. 
 A health to dreamland, friends. 
 
 ALL. A health to dreamland. 
 
 ADAH. On shores afar the peaceful waters lap. 
 And winds at play among the rustling boughs 
 Are calling for their playmates. 
 
 I RAD. Wait, we come. 
 
 Thy hair is soft, beloved, and thy breath 
 Like April meadows. Fair is earth indeed. 
 Great mother Life, why should thy children lack? 
 Sweet hall of dreams, receive the wanderer back. 
 
 [They all fall into drowsy attitudes, and nothing 
 is heard but the uproar of the storm outside. 
 A long time elapses. Then Irad awakes while 
 the others remain asleep, and with the gleam 
 of unnatural excitement still in his eyes goes 
 to the mouth of the cave.] 
 
 IRAD. Art thou there, Enoch, wandering in the 
 
 night ? 
 
 Let him who wishes life be wise, nor tempt 
 The sons of Cain. Thou pay st thy folly s fee. 
 And thou dark speck beneath the lightning s gleam, 
 If thou be what I think thee, journey on 
 To thy dull destiny. Not Seth alone, 
 Cain also shall survive, and I with Cain; 
 And life with us, not flaccid life and lean, 
 But such as through the inmost vein of being 
 Mines out the treasure hid. Still vext pursue 
 
76 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 A phantom future, lay foundation walls; 
 We ll clasp the present, feast in halls that are. 
 
 CURTAIN. 
 
ACT IV. 
 
 SCENE I. 
 
 TIME. A number of days later. 
 
 PLACE. A small temple to Niloh on the topmost 
 point of Mount Himenay. The scene is a square 
 colonnade. At the back it is open and gives a view 
 of the storm outside and the waste of waters, which 
 now are not far below the top of the mountain. 
 Far off appears a half submerged rock which was 
 once the summit of a high mountain peak. In the 
 foreground are rugs, couches, and all the fur 
 nishings of luxury. The scene begins in the dim 
 gray twilight of daytime, which darkens into pitch- 
 black night at the end. 
 
 [Enter the Antediluvians as if from banquet. ] 
 
 IBAN. Let heaven roar and rain! Who cares? 
 
 Its flashes 
 
 Are festal lamps to us, its thunder music. 
 Let the wet patter ; let the wind it drenches 
 Blow cool our fevered cheek. 
 
 TUBAL. Climb, ocean, climb. 
 
 Your waves besiege a fort provisioned well. 
 One drop of life-infusing wine can conquer 
 All your damp horrors. 
 
78 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 IBAN. Ocean s but a stage, 
 
 Postprandial theater, our panorama. 
 Ring up the scudding mist with thunder, gods ; 
 And well enjoy the tableau. 
 
 TUBAL. Reverend Noah, 
 
 Afloat there in the storm, eats moldy cheese, 
 Drinks the flat, tepid rain, and lies in straw 
 Where cattle house. Who d share his cruise with 
 
 him 
 
 Who that can live with us on dainty fare, 
 Drink foaming vintage, lie on purple couches, 
 Feel like the gods warm blood and breathing fra 
 grance ? 
 
 IBAN. Ay, let the world go under ! What care 
 
 we 
 In joy s asylum? 
 
 ADAH. Only all these garlands 
 
 Are withered ones; I miss the living wreaths. 
 The rich old earth is bankrupt now of blossom. 
 And I so prized them all, the rose and lily, 
 Proud garden queen and mistress of the meadow. 
 When buds the earth again ? When shall we cull 
 Flowers on the hills ? 
 
 IRAD. Ask Him who sent the Deluge. 
 
 If still He rule the deep, He knows. But often 
 A crushing terror grips my heart that He, 
 Stunned by this endless rush and roar, and deafened 
 By the eternal lashing of the storm, 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 79 
 
 Has dropped the reins of power; and the wild 
 
 waters, 
 Like horses masterless, gallop on forever. 
 
 ADAH. A fairer dream was mine. Methought 
 
 the sun 
 
 Beamed as of old; and earth to meet him slipped 
 Her robe of waters from her like a bride. 
 His lip was warm on peak and hill, that swelled 
 Like breasts of love, and warm his arms of light 
 Around the blushing planet. From their union 
 Grew life anew. Beneath the mantling sea-weed, 
 Like arbutus through withered leaves of March, 
 Peeped all the flowers of spring. The parting 
 
 ripple 
 Went lingering from the moistened hills, that 
 
 gleamed 
 Like meadows after rain. 
 
 IRAD. I am a churl 
 
 To shatter dream so fair; but we must arm 
 Our hearts beforehand for the hard, stern truth. 
 For when the Flood goes down, if e er it do, 
 The earth will be no bride but one great corpse; 
 And that grim desolation, huge and haunting, 
 Will hang persistent on the eye, and crush 
 The soul within us, valleys black with slime, 
 Gaunt, ribbed hills, the skeleton of a world, 
 And drifted silt, through which the wrecks dis 
 mantled 
 Of the great past will point like dead men s fingers. 
 
80 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 There too we ll find the death of ocean piled 
 High on dry land, strange corpses of the abyss, 
 Tremendous, whale and kraken where they died ; 
 Who knows? perhaps leviathan himself 
 Stretched in portentous bulk along some hill, 
 Athwart the sunset like an ominous cloud. 
 And we must live, one lonely colony, 
 In alien scenes of death, till gradual time 
 Enshroud them deep in herbage. I am cruel, 
 But tis the surgeon s hand. 
 
 TUBAL. This comes of fasting, 
 
 Fasting and lack of wine, this gloomy mood. 
 You have not drunk to-day. Here, boy, but taste. 
 Here s alchemy transmuting woe to bliss, 
 And fool to sage. 
 
 IRAD. We all have drunk too deep 
 
 Of that charmed cup ; would I might never taste it 
 In life again. 
 
 IBAN. Oh, tis the magic glass 
 
 Through which all time grows rosy, life s quin 
 tessence, 
 
 Romance and beauty. Could you live without it 
 One fleeting moon, to drink from j et and puddle 
 Insipid, bare existence? 
 
 TUBAL. He has tried it, 
 
 With solemn oath abjured the god of wine 
 For three whole days, and on the fourth returned 
 With thrice threefold devotion. 
 
 IRAD. What we could do 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 81 
 
 I know not well ; but what we must I know. 
 Have you e er thought what hardship we must bear 
 When all these vaults are drained? Left empty- 
 handed 
 
 On the denuded hills, we must strip off 
 The soft traditions of a hundred years, 
 And delve like Eve and Adam. 
 
 ADAH. Nay, but surely 
 
 We ll be the lords of earth. 
 
 IRAD. And who our servants ? 
 
 Alas, dear head, will miles of barren mud 
 Yield thee one dainty mouthful? Will the winds 
 O er continents all empty blow together 
 A home for thee? When time has worn away 
 This gorgeous robe, think you its like will grow 
 On wayside brambles? Iban and myself 
 Must till old earth for bread ; and thou, sweet love, 
 Even if we spare thee toil, must yet endure 
 With us privation. 
 
 IBAN. Ah, you re like the plague ! 
 
 Your mood s infectious; and my sickening fancy 
 Already weaves the picture, sordid want 
 With horror mixed, where hunger drives us on 
 Through that great cemetery once a world. 
 Here march we swart and haggard ; tired at night 
 Lop trees for shelter, bed on clammy moss ; 
 Drive down our pick on buried thrones of kings, 
 Cheap now as limestone ; gnaw our blackened crust 
 O er stones that jut from halls of former feast; 
 
82 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 Turn with irreverent blow the bygone bones 
 That once had slept with us ; and when the thought 
 Of death and what s beyond has chilled our blood, 
 Read on some kinsman s enigmatic skull, 
 "I know, but tell not." Never ! drink and revel 
 While revel lasts ; and after that we ll sleep. 
 
 IRAD. So say you now ; but would you quench so 
 
 lightly 
 
 That lamp of thought that none can reillume, 
 Dreams even to drudges known, and whispering 
 
 hope 
 
 Intangible and sweet o er weary pillows, 
 Leave this, and sleep forever, none know how, 
 With nothingness or nightmares ? What had Adam 
 And our first mother more than we to charm them ? 
 We ll dig as they did, and perhaps like them 
 Be root of some great nation. 
 
 TUBAL. Ah, I see you 
 
 In vision, youngster, practice what you preach. 
 Old Adam pshaw! his was a bovine race, 
 That grazed, and suckled young, and lived for 
 
 others. 
 
 We re tigers, boy. On others for ourselves 
 We ve learned to live, grown sleek and terrible 
 By that warm diet. Can we now, so late, 
 Unlearn the lesson of the centuries? No. 
 We ll live the tiger s life, and die his death 
 When our fat oxen fail. 
 
 IRAD. The very tiger 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 83 
 
 Would chew the grass and live, if his grim maw 
 Could make it food. 
 
 TUBAL. Ay, but it cannot feed him ; 
 
 Nor can we live and drudge. The pastoral age 
 Went long ago. Oh, I am old, I saw it. 
 They knew no better; ignorance like dew 
 Made life a morning fresh. The dew is dried. 
 They built the world and we enjoyed it well. 
 Why should we build like fools for others ? No ! 
 When the long banquet s done, out lights ! to bed ! 
 We ve had our hour and used it. 
 
 I BAN. Ay, our fathers 
 
 Went drudging on, and lived because they lived, 
 Ne er asking why. We ve learned to think, to know 
 What a poor piebald robe of curse and blessing 
 Is life at best ; at worst a poison tunic, 
 Which wisdom spurns. 
 
 IRAD. Had God not sent the Deluge 
 
 What hand had built for future years, and saved 
 Wisdom and health for them, while we were wasting 
 The hoard our fathers piled? Those mighty 
 
 muscles, 
 
 That have withstood unwrecked a lifetime s waste, 
 Debauchery and soft joy; these brains of ours, 
 In which the genius of a maddening world 
 Flares up before it dies, these are the savings 
 Of the long, healthy years before we came. 
 What body, mind, and soul were we bequeathing 
 To future nations ? 
 
84 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 I BAN. Would you have the world 
 
 Forever in the same prosaic furrow 
 Crawl on in stingy leanness? Rather think 
 Our fathers were the root, and we the flower, 
 The perfect blossom. Twas for us they sucked 
 The j uice of earth ; and, had we never bloomed, 
 They too were vain. The dream of what we are 
 Cheered on those plodding sires ; and what we were 
 From monolith and parchment shall inspire 
 The years to be. We are a flame that o er 
 The sordid hills of time interprets life 
 As something splendid. 
 
 FIRST REVELER. Is not that the theme 
 
 Of your new drama? 
 
 IBAN. Surely. 
 
 ADAH. Oh, the drama ! 
 
 We have not heard it; you must read it, Iban. 
 
 SECOND REVELER. No, no ! we ll act it. 
 
 FIRST REVELER. Act it ; that is better. 
 
 ADAH. What is the plot? 
 
 IBAN. The Power that rules the world, 
 
 Arraigned in court for drowning man, is brought 
 Before old Time as judge. The Spirit of Beauty 
 Is his accuser; he defends himself. 
 The verdict ends the play. Tis a mere fragment, 
 Thrown off at random. 
 
 FIRST REVELER. Iban shall be accuser, 
 
 Old Tubal-cain, throned here in state, be Time, 
 And I the offending Power. We know our lines. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 85 
 
 Now for the play. 
 
 IBAN. The scene s the hall of Time. 
 
 TUBAL-CAIN (as Time). 
 
 We fill our throne of judgment. Who appear 
 In this great court of last appeal, to hear 
 The sentence of old Time? 
 
 IBAN (as the Spirit of Beauty). 
 
 So deep a wrong 
 
 As never sons of Beauty yet nor Song 
 Have known I bring. That Power which from the 
 
 void 
 
 The world created and the world destroyed 
 I here accuse, that his own child he slew, 
 The earth which at his knee in beauty grew ; 
 And heaped the scum of waves and drifted silt 
 O er what my hand and thine, old Time, had built. 
 
 TUBAL-CAIN (as Time). 
 
 A fearful charge ; what answer, Lord of Spheres, 
 Mak st thou before the dread and searching years ? 
 
 FIRST REVELER (as the Power of the World, and 
 mimicking the manner of Noah). 
 
 All measures in vain 
 
 Would the measureless span ; 
 And what .word shall explain 
 
 The eternal to man, 
 
86 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 In what dim recesses 
 
 The mystery lurks 
 That curses and blesses 
 
 And endlessly works? 
 When the world that was doomed 
 
 Was engulfed in the wave, 
 Then my wrath but resumed 
 
 What my clemency gave. 
 And the reasons that stirred me, 
 
 The will that inflamed, 
 Know those only who heard me, 
 
 When nature was framed. 
 O er a glory immoral, 
 
 A beauty profane, 
 Now branches the coral 
 
 And darkens the main. 
 
 TUBAL-CAIN (as Time). 
 Hast thou no more? Speak on, accuser. 
 
 IBAN (as the Spirit of Beauty). 
 
 Lo, 
 
 The saddest witness court did ever know 
 I bring thee here, and call to life again 
 The spirit of that city built by Cain. 
 Sea-weed and wreckage line her marble floors; 
 Night keeps the temple now where none adores; 
 For thrones imperial whale and serpent vie; 
 And dead within her arms her children lie. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 87 
 
 There infants are who scarce began to bloom, 
 And babes unborn that died within the womb, 
 The little hand that just had learned to reach 
 The mother s face, the gaze that longed for speech. 
 What law of God or nature ever broke 
 The helpless arm, the lip that never spoke? 
 There lie, cut off untimely, girl and boy, 
 Whose only fault was that they dared enjoy 
 What Heaven and nature gave. And here the seas 
 Rolled dark o er those who drew from breathing 
 
 keys 
 
 Delight unknown before, from wire or pipe, 
 Or metal s clang ; and those, when time was ripe, 
 Who mirrored life on canvas, wall and frieze ; 
 And bards divine, who sang of art and ease, 
 Delight and dream and life without alloy; 
 And learned men, who found the cup of joy 
 In the dark mine of life, and gave the power 
 To taste without repentance answering hour. 
 And mighty men of old renown are there, 
 Whose like come nevermore, whose strength could 
 
 tear 
 
 The lion s jaws. Unworn a lifetime long 
 They drank the exhaustless rapture of the strong, 
 Warred, loved, and reveled; and their torch burnt 
 
 red, 
 
 Yet unconsumed. Lo, judge, for all these dead 
 I make appeal. The light is quenched that none 
 Can reillume, the day of glory done, 
 
88 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 The life that was, the life that none restore, 
 The life that earth shall equal nevermore. 
 
 TUBAL-CAIN (as Time). 
 
 Hark to the judgment of old Time. Thou Power 
 That hast consumed thy children, from this hour 
 Resign thy throne, nor hope to fill it more 
 Till thou the glory thou hast quenched restore. 
 And, final act of thy now forfeit might, 
 Quell thou the storm, rekindle heaven s light, 
 Roll back the waves, and call the earth to bloom. 
 
 FIRST REVELER (as Power of the World). 
 
 Lo, here submissive I accept my doom. 
 
 Even as I speak rain, wind, and cloud have ceased; 
 
 The floods withdraw, the morning walks the east. 
 
 And what thou hast not asked, repentant now 
 
 I will perform, and seal it with a vow. 
 
 The sad survivors of the world that s gone 
 
 I ll love and cherish as the doe its fawn. 
 
 Still as his father did the son shall do; 
 
 And the old world be born in them anew. 
 
 IBAN. So ends the play. 
 
 ADAH. And well deserves our thanks. 
 
 Irad, is that not so? Why do you stare 
 So fixedly at the storm ? No word of praise 
 For what has charmed us? 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 89 
 
 IRAD. Oh, twas doubtless well. 
 
 Only the Power outside there in the rain 
 Seemed somewhat different from your mimic one. 
 
 [He walks to the edge of the colonnade and holds 
 up his hands into the storm that drives over 
 him. At the same time there comes an un 
 usually loud peal of thunder.~\ 
 
 Here s His cold message ; there you hear His voice 
 
 Proclaim His will to man. Shall you and I, 
 
 Think you, by his decree renew on earth 
 
 The life we used to live ? And that dark water, 
 
 Pitted and wrinkled by the spouting floods 
 
 Of yet augmenting anger, is the seal 
 
 Of His approval on our past and future. 
 
 ADAH. You are unwell. 
 
 IRAD. Oh, yes, I am unwell, 
 
 Sick of a thing they call the curse of God. 
 You too are sick and know it not, all, all. 
 But the physician s coming. 
 
 ADAH (to others). Pray you, leave us. 
 
 [Exeunt all except Adah and Irad.~\ 
 
 ADAH. Thou art alone with me. Come, rest thy 
 
 head 
 
 Upon my bosom, let me lull thy fever. 
 Thy forehead burns. 
 
 IRAD. Then fold thy kerchief there. 
 
90 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 Not sick in blood am I but sick of heart, 
 And need no medicine but companionship. 
 
 ADAH. Liked you not Iban s play? 
 
 I RAD. Twas mockery, mockery. 
 
 He played a wedding march ; and through the win 
 dow 
 I saw the bride s white skull. 
 
 ADAH. You will go mad 
 
 If thus you watch that water. Gone is Nod, 
 The beautiful city of our childhood s gone ; 
 But we, we live ; and in the city of love 
 We ll still be happy. 
 
 IRAD. Oh, but shall we be? 
 
 Or is our love a transitory thing, 
 Far from life s root, one petal of that flower 
 Which God mowed down in mercy ere it withered ? 
 On thy soft forehead burns no brand of Cain, 
 No saint s more fair. Had we grown old in Nod, 
 And God ne er sent the Deluge, could we two 
 Have kept the genial torch of love alight 
 When blood and bone were cold ? What think you, 
 
 Adah? 
 
 Weak, old, and wrinkled, had we still been dear 
 Each to the other? 
 
 ADAH. What persistent wind 
 
 Thus blows your mind on rocks of wretchedness ? 
 We re young; if now we dream of being old, 
 When shall we have our youth? 
 
 IRAD. Is love a lamp 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 91 
 
 To burn on sense and fade when sense is gone ? 
 
 If so,, we ll light it and inhale its breath 
 
 Now while we may. But there s another love, 
 
 Ne er found in life yet seeming meant to live, 
 
 That comes in dreams and haunts my waking hours. 
 
 In that the passing glow of youth became 
 
 A furnace fire,, wherein the soul was forged 
 
 To beauty s image; and the heat grew cold, 
 
 But left the soul it forged still beautiful. 
 
 And oft I ve dreamed one woman dwelt with me 
 
 In a small cottage out among the trees 
 
 As brother might with sister, only closer, 
 
 In sweeter union, weaving soul in soul; 
 
 Have sat long nights beside her hand in hand, 
 
 In lonely chambers, where no stifling air 
 
 With incense loaded came, but meadows breathed 
 
 Through open windows. For our torch the moon 
 
 Shone pure and tranquil. In that hour we might 
 
 Have grown unbodied spirits, mixing still 
 
 In incorporeal winds, and still have loved. 
 
 Our drink was all the brook; and calm within 
 
 Flowed strength that never from the wine-cup 
 
 welled. 
 
 We toiled, accomplished, builded, felt in little 
 What must have been the great Creator s joy. 
 And the grave hills looked down, and placid heaven 
 Smiled kindly at us. Slowly we grew old 
 Among our children, yet the moving years 
 But drew us closer. Is all this a dream ? 
 
92 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 Or can we live so, Adah, you and I ? 
 
 ADAH. Nay, you are feverish ; let the future go ; 
 For none can tell what power or wish were ours 
 On ways untried, and woman least of all. 
 Where thou art not is desert ; where thou art 
 I clasp thy youth, and none can wrest it from me. 
 Let the great clock tick on ; we ll stuff our ears 
 And never hear it. 
 
 IRAD. But the cry of children, 
 
 Our own, will come. What life shall they be 
 taught ? 
 
 ADAH. What else than that of time s old race, 
 
 the blood 
 Of Cain and Irad? 
 
 IRAD. Shall our little daughter 
 
 Grow up to worship Niloh? And our boy 
 Learn life as I did? 
 
 ADAH. Would you have him other 
 
 Than what you are, the manliest son of Cain? 
 What in your nature vexes you? 
 
 IRAD. O Adah, 
 
 There s something in my nature killing me. 
 Why turned my fancy thus to rural life, 
 Untainted love and labor s healthy vigil? 
 Twas as the traveler, dying parched in deserts, 
 Might dream cool water near, and gulp the sand 
 In helpless longing. Night and day there comes 
 The vision of a life I cannot live, 
 Such as God meant for man, and which my fathers 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 93 
 
 Bartered for this ere I was born. I said, 
 
 Calm peace shall drive out anger ; in an hour 
 
 I was a murderer. Temperance, then I said, 
 
 Shall spread my table; four short days had passed, 
 
 And wine and lotus claimed me. Yet, I cried, 
 
 My love for woman shall be pure as dew. 
 
 But oh ! though pure and fair my love for thee, 
 
 And rooted deep in all that s noblest here, 
 
 Yet ever on that rose of beauty crawls 
 
 The loathsome worm that Niloh s worship spawned. 
 
 Nor can I pluck it from my brain. 
 
 ADAH. Be calm. 
 
 You see the world through black delirium s glass, 
 Which colors all you do. Who d have a man 
 Meek as a peasant, dieting like children, 
 Loving he knows not what ? The thing that frights 
 
 you 
 
 Is life as all do live. You re not yourself. 
 Rest and forget. 
 
 IRAD. Oh, these are on the surface, 
 
 Mere ripples from within. But deeper, deeper 
 Goes the dread thing I have not words to tell. 
 Tis my whole view of life. Ambition, friendship, 
 Love, pleasure, worship, God, and hope, and beauty, 
 And good and evil, all these things on me, 
 Like some fair hillside glassed in turbid waters, 
 Come fouled and darkened. I am like a man 
 Whose limbs the surgeon lopped but yesterday. 
 Still in his brain the restless nerves reach out 
 
94 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 To clasp, to move, and nothing there responds. 
 So day and night my spirit reaches out 
 To be the man God meant me; but the power 
 To clasp that dream my fathers rent and severed 
 Ere I drew breath. 
 
 ADAH. What would you do or be 
 
 That you cannot ? Are you not envied heir 
 Of what the centuries gathered, fair and strong, 
 A lord of men ? 
 
 IRAD. Oh, yes, a blessed heir. 
 
 Our grandsires made the torch, our fathers burnt 
 
 it; 
 Tis at the socket now. 
 
 ADAH. Have you not friends 
 
 To make you cheer? 
 
 IKAD. Yes, but that angry ocean 
 
 Brings such a loneliness as none dispel. 
 There speaks the wrath of God, and night and day 
 Frowns in on me. 
 
 ADAH. Let the dark despot frown. 
 
 We ll scorn His tyranny. 
 
 I RAD - Were He a tyrant 
 
 Then I could bear, retorting scorn with scorn. 
 But wiser, deeper, tenderer than the love 
 Of man is His; and while He frowns on me, 
 He smiles on others, beautiful beyond words. 
 Oh, lonely, lonely past all speech to feel 
 The anger of the good ! I am the blot 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 95 
 
 On His fair world, the gnarl upon the bough,, 
 Which He must pare away. 
 
 ADAH. This road is madness. 
 
 You must not, shall not brood on things like these. 
 Hark,, and I ll sing thy restless heart to sleep 
 With an old tune we love. 
 
 SONG 
 
 What calls from the distance 
 
 And beckons us on? 
 Tis the joy of existence 
 
 Ere morning be gone. 
 The blossoms are swelling, 
 
 The dawn s in the east; 
 And the soul in its dwelling 
 
 Rejoices at feast. 
 While to harmony moving 
 
 All blessings unite, 
 The loved and the loving 
 
 Drink deep of delight. 
 The gods have grown heedless, 
 
 They all are so old. 
 Oh, why, when tis needless, 
 
 Should pleasure be cold? 
 
 IRAD. I thank thee, dear. 
 
 And now thou rt weary ; leave me here a little. 
 I d be alone and silent. 
 
96 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 ADAH. Dare I trust thee 
 
 To thy dark thoughts alone? 
 
 IRAD. They re fleeing fast, 
 
 Chased by thy gentle touch. Goodby, sweet love. 
 
 ADAH. But stay not long alone, for I shall miss 
 thee. 
 
 [Exit Adah.] 
 
 IRAD (alone). The night grows dense within and 
 
 wild without. 
 
 The torches are burnt low, and in their sockets 
 Flicker and fade. There, the wild gust has 
 
 quenched them. 
 
 Come, Darkness, and shake hands ; for I and thou 
 Are of the shadowy things that must make room 
 When God brings in His morning. 
 
 [Walks to the edge and looks at the water.] 
 
 Rising still. 
 
 Where on these waters dark is Noah now ? 
 Two empty places in his ark there are, 
 Mine and my victim s. What dark spot is that 
 Which floats against the rock and hangs there? 
 
 Strange, 
 
 It looks a floating coffin. Something white 
 Peeps out beneath the lightning. Tis a skull. 
 Thou dreadful herald from the realms untrod, 
 Why knock st thou here? Nay, rather, wandering 
 
 waif, 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 97 
 
 What hospitality dost thou need more? 
 
 Does lack of burial haunt thee ? Has that brought 
 
 thee 
 Thus battering at my gate? Wait, then, I come. 
 
 [He descends to the water, and soon returns with 
 a human skull in his hand.] 
 
 Sit there, ambassador. I d talk with thee. 
 I ll seek thy country shortly, and I d know 
 Its customs, folk, and language. You live longer 
 Than we do here ; pray, does the time hang heavy ? 
 Do the dead know each other ? Can young lovers 
 Still find each other lovely? Does God come there 
 To smile on these and frown at those ? No answer ? 
 Oh, you re a diplomat; you ve learned out there 
 To hold your tongue. Nay, you re but bones and 
 
 offal. 
 
 What answer should the brain in my warm skull 
 Expect of this dry pod? Thou rt but the husk 
 Of some abortive grain which winds have blown 
 From God s great threshing-floor. Poor, kindred 
 
 thing, 
 
 Cast on the dump-heap of the world, while God 
 Finds pleasure elsewhere! Yet he did not die 
 Beneath the Deluge; see, these bones were cracked 
 By club or staff. What Cainite son of Cain 
 Took thee for Abel? Half methinks I know 
 The face that once you lined. Did Noah send thee 
 Afloat to me ? Or has the Flood scooped up 
 
98 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 Thy new-dug grave, that thou art come to stare 
 At my sick conscience thus ? Preach on, preach on ! 
 I know thy text, admit its truth ; and yet 
 Thou might st have mercy. Even in death persist 
 ent! 
 
 Or hast thou come to tell me that those eyes 
 Have seen the Deluge, as thou swor st they should, 
 And I did swear they should not ? Get thee gone ! 
 Wert thou alive again I d kill thee still! 
 
 [He strikes the skull, which rolls along the floor. 
 Then after a pause he speaks.] 
 
 And yet the will to murder ! 
 
 [From the next room comes an outburst of drunken 
 revelry.] 
 
 Oh, great Heaven, 
 
 What things are we that we have lived so long? 
 Come, Death, beneath thy mantel cover up 
 The horrid glass that shows us what we are. 
 Blow wind, and tumble rain, and ocean swell ! 
 Why are you tardy? Haste your cleansing work. 
 Wipe us from that creation which we blot ! 
 Come, bury us, bury us from the face of God 
 Under your waters forever and forever ! 
 
 CURTAIN. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 99 
 
 SCENE II. 
 
 TIME. Four or five days later. 
 
 PLACE. The same as in the last scene. The 
 storm, however, has ceased, and the moon shines 
 occasionally through the clouds. 
 
 [Enter Iban and Tubal-cain.~\ 
 
 IBAN. The rain has paused ; is ocean rising yet ? 
 
 TUBAL. No, not two fathom down beneath our 
 
 feet 
 
 The waves have halted. Through the grated cloud 
 There glints the moon at last. 
 
 IBAN. And hope with her 
 
 Returns at length to tell a kindlier future 
 Than this cold, fishy death we feared. 
 
 TUBAL. Even so. 
 
 The balance turns. Life may have something yet 
 For all of us. 
 
 IBAN. No, not for all; for one 
 
 That cup is emptied. 
 
 TUBAL. Adah? 
 
 IBAN. She is dying. 
 
 TUBAL. But three days ill, and all to end 
 
 to-night. 
 
 The race of men grow frail, young generations 
 That wither in the bud. The hoary fathers 
 
100 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 Who drowned of late o ertopped their dwindling 
 
 sons. 
 
 The mighty lived; but might was born no more. 
 Nor length of days. Could wind as light as this 
 Detach a fruit unripened? 
 
 IBAN. Fate is jealous 
 
 Of all that s fair. The things that charmed our life 
 He filches one by one. 
 
 [Exeunt Iban and Tubal-cain. Enter Irad bear 
 ing Adah.] 
 
 IRAD. Here rest thee where the moon s rekin 
 dling beam 
 May light thy brow. 
 
 ADAH. Tis gone. 
 
 IRAD. Twill come again. 
 
 There exiled life returns to all mankind; 
 Canst thou not share it? 
 
 ADAH. Oh, the wish to live 
 
 Burns up anew, but not the power. All s done, 
 The glamour and the glory, warmth and beat 
 Of life s glad, transient dream. I pant for breath. 
 Ah, me! 
 
 IRAD. Here rest thy head. Thou rt better now ? 
 There gleams the moon again, as when it lighted 
 Our loves of old. 
 
 ADAH. But not the same ; its ray 
 
 Is cold, that once was warm. 
 
AND OTHER 
 
 IRAD. The same bright key 
 
 Is this which once unlocked our golden hours. 
 
 ADAH. The golden hours are gone. Ah, who 
 
 can tell 
 
 Behind the door that key unlocks to-night 
 What waits for me ? Perhaps old Elmin s ghost 
 Will ask me on the threshold of the dead 
 Why he was poisoned; with malignant leer 
 May tell my soul tis at his mercy there. 
 
 IRAD. You did not kill him. 
 
 ADAH. No, nor would have done. 
 
 But yet he ll know I smiled and let him die, 
 And shared his wealth. 
 
 IRAD. What justice can he claim, 
 
 Himself more criminal than thou? 
 
 ADAH. But he, 
 
 He may be mighty yonder. Were he weak, 
 Then I d not fear. Fold me in thy strong arms; 
 A horror chills me. 
 
 IRAD. Fear not, I am near. 
 
 And where thou goest I will follow too. 
 
 ADAH. Ah, but once parted in the boundless 
 
 night 
 How shall we meet again? 
 
 IRAD. We ll trust to Heaven. 
 
 ADAH. A specter haunts me, a dread, nameless 
 
 Nothing. 
 
 I call the dead to ask them how they fare, 
 And Nothing answers. I would read the future 
 
109 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 With shuddering heart; and through the parted 
 
 curtain 
 I see that Nothing waiting. 
 
 IRAD. These are nightmares. 
 
 For even though death were one eternal sleep, 
 We ve slept long hours in life and held them 
 
 precious. 
 ADAH. We slept to wake again, found slumber 
 
 here 
 
 One narrow rift between the blooming days. 
 What sleep is that whence none awaken? Surely 
 Tis like no thing on earth. Oh, I am faint. 
 
 IRAD. Canst thou yet hear me? Speak, or move 
 
 thy hand. 
 
 ADAH. I dig my fingers in the shore of life, 
 But the great current draws me. 
 
 IRAD. Ho there, help ! 
 
 [Enter Tubal-cain.] 
 
 Her hand grows chilly. 
 
 TUBAL. Say your last adieu. 
 
 Tis come, and none can stay it. 
 
 IRAD. Hast thou more, 
 
 Message or last petition? 
 
 ADAH. I have loved thee. 
 
 Forget me not if thou dost call my name, 
 And Nothing answer. Could we relive our lives 
 Unchanged, the same, how sweet it were. Goodby. 
 (Dies.) 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 103 
 
 I RAD. What, is it ended? 
 
 TUBAL. Let us veil her face. 
 
 I RAD. No, wait a while. The moon holds down 
 
 its torch 
 
 To learn if this be death. The muscles move. 
 She d speak again. 
 
 TUBAL. Tis the deceiving light. 
 
 There, clouds encase the moon ; and in the dark 
 You cannot hear her breathe. 
 
 IRAD. All silent, yes. 
 
 TUBAL. May none disturb her tomb. 
 
 IRAD. One night in sport 
 
 She donned my armored glove, which tight I 
 
 gripped, 
 
 And swore to hold her thus against a world. 
 But playful, slipping back the hand within, 
 She fled and mocked me. What I held was cold, 
 Empty and hollow. So these earthy fingers 
 I hold as in a vice ; but that within, 
 Beyond my reach, has slipped from me and gone. 
 
 TUBAL. Last daughter of an ancient line was 
 
 she. 
 
 And in her childless bed the race of Cain 
 Forever ends. Ah, well, tis better so. 
 I m old; I ve watched the withering world too long 
 To gild illusions. Yet it leaves us lonely, 
 We cold survivors. 
 
 IRAD. "Better so." You too 
 
 Would echo Noah. Never child shall heir 
 
104 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 That growing curse that like a river swelled, 
 In which each reckless generation poured 
 Its tributary taint. And yet was not 
 Her soul a thing of wonder, and her life 
 A lamp mysterious, lighted from on high? 
 Is God so wasteful when He plans a world 
 Of such rare marble as the lives of men, 
 He ll count as worthless rubbish every stone 
 Found useless in His building? Will He not, 
 In some great treasure-house beyond the grave, 
 Preserve them still, nay, find them fitting there 
 Into some vast design unhinted here? 
 
 TUBAL. Think that which gives you joy. I ve 
 
 watched too long 
 
 What mad economy those prodigals 
 Who rule the world employ. And life is hewn 
 From quarries inexhaustible, more cheap 
 Than any wayside stone, tis everywhere. 
 My loves have quarried out a thousand blocks ; 
 My hate has cracked a thousand. Let it go. 
 Yet a few hours I ll roll into my grave 
 Like a lost pebble. But the time till then, 
 That interval is mine ; my life to me 
 As precious as tis cheap to God. Nay, boy, 
 Ne er rack your head nor break your heart against 
 A granite wall. We ll bury her in state. 
 And then we ll live. 
 
 IRAD. . Not I. The time is past 
 
 When thus I reasoned. Were no life beyond, 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 105 
 
 No justice here, yet in my dying hour, 
 
 If I could feel I d toiled for something more 
 
 Than life and pleasure, I d create myself 
 
 What gods denied, and dream it into being ; 
 
 Project my spirit through eternity 
 
 From that one hour as center, and drink in 
 
 What earth could never give, the blessed sense 
 
 Of widening sympathy, the calm approval 
 
 Of that still monitor who in our breast 
 
 Weighs good and evil. 
 
 TUBAL. Where have you unearthed 
 
 This ancient heirloom conscience ? Did gray Noah, 
 With other musty relics of old days, 
 Preserve you this ? I mind when I myself 
 Had such a plaything. Memory s a strange world. 
 Sometimes there is a kind of phantom boy 
 Comes from its realm to vex me. 
 
 IRAD. What was he? 
 
 TUBAL. Like and not like to me. He found the 
 
 way 
 
 To fuse the steel from heaven s pelting rocks; 
 And he en j oyed some things that you and I 
 Would find but tedious. Well, your path is yours, 
 And I ll go mine. Pray, can I serve you further? 
 
 IRAD. Only, I pray you, see that none intrude 
 On our last parting. 
 
 TUBAL. None shall dare. Goodnight. 
 
 [Exit Tubal-cain.] 
 
106 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 I RAD (alone). How ghastly in the moonlight 
 
 shows the print 
 
 Of death upon her features, how unlike 
 The rosy glow of sleep, whose breathing lip 
 Still murmurs with the drowsy whir of dreams. 
 She tells me nothing. Has she aught to tell? 
 Is she more wise than I, or is all wisdom 
 For her one blank ? Shall we e er meet again ? 
 And should we dwell in everlasting joy, 
 Whose joys were all perverted here, what pleasure, 
 Acceptable to God, were sweet to us ? 
 Or shall we change our inmost nature so 
 That what was dull grows dear, and former sweet 
 Becomes abhorred ? Such fundamental change 
 Would loose the bonds of being, and dissolve 
 All cherished attributes and human ties. 
 Or is all evil such by local laws, 
 Though penal here permissible elsewhere? 
 In vain we query, yet our bankrupt souls, 
 On earth impoverished, long for wealth in Heaven, 
 And knock and knock, though never answered. 
 
 Hark, 
 
 Thou God entrenched in night and nothingness, 
 Thou God of Noah, who by word and sign 
 Told him the Flood would come. I ask of Thee 
 One token only, which mere man would grant, 
 Had he the power. If those You cancel here, 
 Unfit for earthly needs, find home beyond, 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 107 
 
 Grow pure beside Thee and are blest indeed, 
 Let the moon shine unclouded while I pace 
 This chamber s length. But if in worlds beyond, 
 Even as in this, we prove abortive seed, 
 And destined for decay, then let yon cloud 
 O ershade the orb it neighbors, bringing night 
 In my mid journey. 
 
 [He paces slowly the length of the colonnade. The 
 moon meanwhile shines uninterruptedly.] 
 
 Shall I hold it true? 
 
 The windy vapor licked its golden round, 
 Yet turned and blew not o er it. Once again, 
 Great Lord of Heaven, now I ll change the sign. 
 If death have life in store, make dark the moon 
 In my mid path; but if tis all despair 
 Then keep her beaming. 
 
 [He paces the colonnade again. The moon shines 
 uninterruptedly as before.] 
 
 Ah, tis even so. 
 
 God needs must be, else how had Noah known 
 What never man could guess ; but that dread God 
 Has other business in the growing worlds 
 Than cheering wasted lumber. Be it so. 
 Come, thou cold sweetheart, lay thy breast on mine. 
 We re something each to other yet, or were. 
 
108 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 We ll pray no longer; God s forgotten us 
 In the great plan of things ; but we, beloved, 
 We ll not forget. We ve yet some hours till dawn. 
 
 CURTAIN. 
 
ACT V. 
 
 TIME. One or two days later. 
 
 PLACE. The edge of the mountain top not far 
 from the temple. The waters are almost on a level 
 with it. 
 
 [Enter Irad and Tubal-cain.] 
 
 TUBAL. The skies grow dark anew. 
 
 IRAD. Their gleam of light 
 
 Was sent in mockery. Once again the winds 
 Blow damp and boding; clouds entomb the sun, 
 Reviving night and fear. 
 
 TUBAL. Is ocean rising? 
 
 IRAD. Not yet, but soon it must. An evil grin 
 Goes wandering o er its corrugated face, 
 Anticipating prey. 
 
 TUBAL. A gruesome sight. 
 
 IRAD. Ay, is it not? See where for leagues it 
 
 stretches, 
 
 All flecked with foam, like mottled pards at play. 
 There swim the rotting planks of nameless wrecks 
 That vainly dared the Deluge. Forest trees, 
 Washed out from guttered hills, go floating by 
 With bones amid their branches. There we read 
 Our own to-morrow. 
 
110 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 TUBAL. Yonder waits in ocean 
 
 Our old white-bellied friend to give us greeting. 
 Well, tis his hour. Why should I tear my lungs 
 In the vain howl for mercy ? 
 
 [Music is heard from the temple.] 
 
 IRAD. What is that? 
 
 TUBAL. A knell, or equal. Our good friends 
 
 have sworn, 
 
 I ban and all the rest, if death must come, 
 To die like Cainites reveling. Three whole days 
 They ve kept a banquet sauced with poison waiting 
 The signal of the sky. They view it now 
 All draped in death. They re at their final feast. 
 We two are left. 
 
 IRAD. Why drank you not with them? 
 
 TUBAL. The mere brute instinct hugging life 
 
 perhaps. 
 
 A tough old leaf am I, that tightly clings 
 Even on the wintry tree. Or sportsman s blood, 
 That loves to fight the battle out, nor whine 
 Because we lose. 
 
 IRAD. For two nights past I ve had 
 
 A haunting vision, never taking shape, 
 But whispering hope and comfort. 
 
 TUBAL. Well, to-morrow 
 
 You ll test its prophecy. 
 
 IRAD. Not so; it pointed 
 
 Beyond the morrow. If it whisper truth 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 111 
 
 Death s but a turnstile ; if deluding dream, 
 Then let me die deluded; better so 
 Than drugged in drunken stupor. 
 
 TUBAL. As you will. 
 
 I ve caused a thousand deaths, nor ever asked 
 About the future; I ll not plague it now 
 For my one funeral. 
 
 IRAD. All is hushed behind us. 
 
 TUBAL. Yea, Iban s rhapsodies are done. He 
 
 As often earlier, o er his cup; nor knows 
 What ushers come to bear him hence, nor fears 
 Though they be strange and cold. 
 
 IRAD. Twere wrong to leave them 
 
 Neglected as they died while life is ours. 
 Come, let us lay the dead in reverent state, 
 And say a last goodby. 
 
 TUBAL. Small care have they 
 
 Who wrap their winding sheet or close their eyes, 
 We now, or ocean soon. But yet we ll go. 
 
 [Exeunt Irad and Tubal-cain. After a pause the 
 ark of Noah floats near the mountain peak and 
 anchors. Noah appears on it. Enter Irad 
 from the temple with his head bowed in emo 
 tion. ] 
 
 IRAD. I had not thought to care; but such a 
 scene, 
 
112 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 The grim burlesque of joyful banquets gone, 
 Is ghastly contrast. Ha! what s here? 
 
 NOAH. Thou being 
 
 That tread st this lonely eyrie, marked by God 
 Last haven for His chosen, who art thou, 
 Survivor or wan phantom? 
 
 I RAD. Who I am 
 
 Thou need st not know nor question. Weigh thine 
 
 anchor 
 
 And get thee gone. This rocky buttress here 
 Will crack thy hull like nutshells if the wind 
 But veer behind thee. 
 
 NOAH. He who wields the wind 
 
 With me is pilot. Thou art gaunt and worn, 
 But like to one I knew. 
 
 IRAD. If thou knew st good 
 
 Spare thy dull eulogy; if thou knew st evil 
 I ve suffered that should make detraction dumb. 
 My part in life is ended; count me dead, 
 Nor vex me more. Land not thy laughing crew 
 To mock our shore of mourning. Turn thy prow 
 To happier havens. 
 
 NOAH. Art thou Irad? 
 
 IRAD. Nay, 
 
 I m but a cipher which the waves will wipe 
 From off the slate of being. 
 
 NOAH. Thou art he. 
 
 Unhappy man, the storms that wrenched thy life 
 Have left their traces. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 113 
 
 IRAD. Yea, if you would know it, 
 
 The dead have had revenge. Didst think to find me 
 Obese and pampered, who have daily watched 
 The death of all I loved, and nightly lain 
 Upon the rack of conscience ? But our nerves 
 Grow numb with suffering. Speak whate er you 
 
 will; 
 Tis naught to me. 
 
 NOAH. One dear to both of us 
 
 Pursued thy flight. 
 
 IRAD. Ask not for him ; God took him. 
 
 I would have burned in fire by inches for him. 
 Fate willed not so. 
 
 NOAH. Ah, well, we held him dead; 
 
 Yet hope dies hard. 
 
 IRAD. God curses all who love me. 
 
 NOAH. He lives in heaven, is spared the lifelong 
 
 toil 
 
 Of earth s lone pioneers. He died for thee, 
 Bequeathing thee to those he loved. 
 
 IRAD. Would rather 
 
 This head had been the first that ocean drowned ! 
 
 NOAH. Arm not thy heart in this defiant mood, 
 As if thy kin were foes ; nor think reproach 
 Is on my lip. What s done is done, abhorred 
 Alike by me and thee. Thy past and thou 
 Be kept forever separate. 
 
 IRAD. Would they were, 
 
 That I, rejoicing, like a babe new-born 
 
114 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 Might feel thy love, if thou canst love me still. 
 But tis not so. 
 
 NOAH. Thy gloom has tutored thee 
 
 To read all life awry. 
 
 IRAD. Nay, rather turned 
 
 These eyes within to read a truth severe. 
 My lesson s learned. I ll blot no more with blood 
 The record of my life, which sealed to-night 
 Goes up in God s great archives. 
 
 NOAH. Heaven forbid! 
 
 The wind of death blows o er thy rock ; the waves 
 Already make it slippery. Come with me. 
 The love of God is wide, and meaner souls 
 Float here to safety; why should one like thine 
 Go down in darkness? Haste, embark; we ll steer 
 For the glad haven of a fairer world. 
 
 IRAD. And wilt thou venture this, remembering 
 all? 
 
 NOAH. And will I not ? I left thy doom to God, 
 And God preserved thee. Now I ll fight no more 
 Against the welling love within me. Come ! 
 
 IRAD. Where should I go? to lay foundation 
 
 deep 
 
 For some new world to last till time is gray ? 
 Wilt thou dig up the grave of Cain, that thence 
 The plagues God buried there may walk again, 
 And taint thy healthy children? 
 
 NOAH. These are words. 
 
 Thou rt wild with want and suffering. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 115 
 
 IRAD. Nay, I m wise 
 
 With wisdom burned upon my brain in fire. 
 The love was deep that would have sheltered me, 
 For that God bless thee. But my part in life 
 Is all to cease, my praise and duty there. 
 Thou know st not what a cursed heritage 
 Is blood of Cain. With me the evil stream 
 Goes ever underground. No child through time 
 Shall call me father ; but the peopled years 
 Will bless my name that I d no part in them. 
 In that I ll know a patriarch s joy. Go on. 
 Here I remain. 
 
 NOAH. Will God count one whose courage 
 
 Would die as martyr for mankind, to save 
 The nations from himself, unworthy saving ? 
 What stolid seaman, picked for life with me, 
 Had dared as much? 
 
 IRAD. Perchance, but, brave or mean, 
 
 Their veins are full of growth and mine decay. 
 If there be life beyond the grave, we ll meet 
 Where we may live forever and be glad. 
 If not, twill be some consolation still 
 To gain my long-lost reverence for myself, 
 And die a man. 
 
 NOAH. Thou speak st like one whose purpose 
 Was breathed from God. Who shall gainsay His 
 
 will? 
 
 Yet this gray head will whiten in a night 
 If here I leave thee. 
 
116 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 I RAD. Mourn not thou for me. 
 
 And yet forget me not, for I may soon 
 Live only in thy love. 
 
 NOAH. No, life eternal 
 
 Is waiting yonder. God Himself declared it 
 By seer and vision. 
 
 IRAD. Yea, these gilded creeds, 
 
 I trust them not; in death they ring but hollow. 
 Let others lull the heart with lotus dreams 
 Of certainties unproved, I scorn their charm. 
 But throwing all upon a gambler s chance, 
 I ll dare to count the odds and yet believe, 
 In blindness clinging. 
 
 NOAH. Scorn not thou religion. 
 
 It is the rainbow where the light of truth 
 Broke up on human tears, a thing of earth, 
 Yet sign of light in heaven. 
 
 IRAD. So we ll trust. 
 
 The winds are wheeling round, the waves roll 
 
 inland, 
 
 All churned in froth and dotted deep with rain. 
 The storm is here. Begone, nor dare to tarry. 
 Thou bear st a world; wreck not such precious 
 
 freight 
 By longer dallying. 
 
 NOAH. Yet you will not come? 
 
 VOICES FROM THE ARK. There, cut the anchor or 
 we re lost ! Away ! 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 117 
 
 IRAD (as the ark floats away). Farewell! forget 
 
 me not ! In our adieu 
 New world and old forever say goodby. 
 
 NOAH (from the distance). God be thy friend! 
 We ll meet again beyond. 
 
 [Enter Tubal-cain.] 
 
 TUBAL. The night comes tumbling down like 
 
 caving sand, 
 
 With rain and whirlwind. Tis a noble hour 
 To bide here lonely with the dead. Hello ! 
 Ho, Irad, boy ! 
 
 IRAD. I m here. 
 
 TUBAL. Thy voice is strange. 
 
 Give me thy hand. Is it the ocean spray 
 Makes it so clammy cold? 
 
 IRAD. No ghost am I, 
 
 If that s your fear. How sweeps before the wind 
 The feathery foam; and bolts begin to peal 
 And bicker overhead. Were it not easy 
 To shock with death beneath such martial music, 
 That keys the will to battle ? Let it come ! 
 
 TUBAL. This waiting chills the heart. Would 
 
 ocean took 
 
 Corporeal form with which a man could fight; 
 Or sent as champion from its dismal camp 
 Some monster of the deep. We d warm our blood 
 In deadly grapple, sweetening with revenge 
 The pang of dying. 
 
118 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 IHAD. How the thunder grows ! 
 
 What doors blow to in heaven ? who enter there ? 
 What messengers of haste to tell the news 
 That Cain s last remnant dies to-night, the race 
 That vexed the eternal council is no more. 
 Oblivion absolute beyond belief 
 Mows down their memory. Never king nor sage 
 Shall model laws from them, nor sculptor view 
 Their cunning carvings ; bard nor architect 
 Be taught by them. Nor shall the coming years 
 Know aught except that like a glorious flame 
 They burnt and passed away. Their name shall be 
 A synonym for all that God abhors ; 
 And buried deep beneath the wave-washed hills 
 Their splendor lie forever, while the law 
 By which they perished molds creation still. 
 
 FINIS. 
 
OTHER POEMS 
 
ARMISTICE 
 
 There lies a world far off in central space 
 Where men have perished all, and beast and bird 
 Have followed after. Nothing there has life, 
 Save the rank vegetation, hiding deep 
 In its soft lap of shade and living green 
 Forgotten bones and tumbling walls of towns. 
 
 Here Michael and the lost archangel once 
 Met in their wanderings. Years had passed by 
 
 thousands 
 
 Since their last meeting. Sad was Satan s face, 
 And sad grew Michael s gazing. Days of old 
 Came rushing on the memories of them both, 
 When by the courts of God as friend with friend 
 They moved, and conscious strength that knew no 
 
 peer 
 
 Save in each other, drew their spirits close 
 In mutual brotherhood, twin stars of Heaven. 
 
 Then Satan spoke: "We meet where man is gone, 
 This bone of old contention; nought is here 
 To fight for longer ; now let battle rest. 
 Come, ancient brother, one short day and night 
 Let good and evil be a thing forgot, 
 And all these bitter centuries. Let us sit 
 And talk together here beneath the trees, 
 As we were used in Heaven long ago." 
 
 And Michael answered not, but doubting stood; 
 
122 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 Then Satan took the angel s harp, and sang 
 To music sad a song of meaning strange. 
 
 And dost thou shrink to clasp thy hand in mine? 
 We both are servants of the will Divine, 
 And thou shalt know it well by proof and sign 
 
 In that far day when all shall have reward. 
 Nor saviour here art thou, nor tempter I, 
 For all the race of man are things gone by; 
 None curse me here beneath this empty sky; 
 
 Why dost thou linger, why am I abhorred? 
 
 Nor good nor evil dwells in stones and herbs, 
 Or where the hand of God the thunder curbs ; 
 Nor good nor ill the ocean s deep disturbs ; 
 
 In man alone we ever met and warred; 
 Sweet peace was ours before his race began; 
 Harsh battle since through all the ages ran; 
 Now in this world that hears no more of man 
 
 Why dost thou linger, why am I abhorred ? 
 
 Worlds, worlds enough there are where we may 
 
 meet 
 
 To war in peopled square and clashing street; 
 But now one hour of armistice were sweet, 
 
 In deserts wide one fount with living sward. 
 Thou knowest not what lonely things we are, 
 Cold shadows from the Light that walks afar. 
 Come, brother, come ; no cause is here for war. 
 
 Why dost thou linger, why am I abhorred? 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 123 
 
 Thus sang the Soul of Mystery, and prevailed. 
 And all day long upon a grassy knoll. 
 Princes of good and evil now no more, 
 But friend with friend, they rested. Far below 
 In a great valley lay the skeletons 
 Of some old battle, whelmed in weeds and fern, 
 And roots of banyans curled around their bones. 
 Northward, a huge square mass of shimmering 
 
 green, 
 
 Its corners beveled by the wind and rain, 
 Vine-clad a crumbling fortress lay. No flag 
 Fluttered above its ramparts; none could tell 
 If this were tyrant s hold or Freedom s shrine. 
 Southward a heap of grassy mounds proclaimed 
 Where once had been a city ; homes and baths, 
 Soft haunts of luring sin and dungeons dread, 
 And churches towering Godward, all were now 
 But tangled hillocks and the mantling brier. 
 The upas dripped its poison on the ground 
 Harmless; the silvery veil of fog went up 
 From moldering fen and cold, malarial pool, 
 But brought no taint and threatened ill to none. 
 Far off, adown the mountain s craggy side 
 From time to time the avalanche thundered^ sound 
 ing 
 
 Like sport of giant children, and the rocks 
 Whereon it smote re-echoed innocently. 
 Then in the silence Lucifer again 
 Struck music from the angel s harp and sang. 
 
124 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 I am the shadow that the sunbeams bring, 
 I am the thorn from which the roses spring ; 
 Without the thorn would be no blossoming, 
 
 Nor were there shadow if there were no gleam. 
 I am a leaf before a wind that blows, 
 I am the foam that down tke current goes ; 
 I work a work on earth that no man knows, 
 
 And God works too, I am not what I seem. 
 
 There comes a purer morn, whose stainless glow 
 Shall cast no shadow on the ground below, 
 And fairer flowers without the thorn shall blow, 
 
 And earth at last fulfill her parent s dream. 
 Oh, race of men who sin and know not why, 
 I am as you, and you are even as I ; 
 We all shall die at length, and gladly die; 
 
 Yet even our deaths shall be not what they seem. 
 
 Then Michael raised the golden lyre, and struck 
 A note more solemn soft, and made reply. 
 
 There dwelt a doubt within my mind of yore, 
 I sought to end that doubt and labored sore ; 
 But now I search its mystery no more, 
 
 But leave it safe within the Eternal s hand. 
 The tiger hunts the lamb and yearns to kill, 
 Himself by famine hunted, fiercer still; 
 And much there is that seems unmingled ill ; 
 
 But God is wise, and God can understand. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 125 
 
 All things on earth in endless balance sway, 
 Day chases night and night succeeds the day; 
 And so the powers of good and evil may 
 
 Work out the purpose that His wisdom planned. 
 Eternal day would parch the dewy mold, 
 Eternal night would freeze the lands with cold; 
 But wise was God who planned the world of old; 
 
 I rest in Him, for He can understand. 
 
 Yet good and evil still their wills oppose; 
 And, serving both, we still must serve as foes 
 On yon far globe that teems with human woes ; 
 
 And Sin thou art, though God work through thy 
 
 hand. 
 
 But here the race of man is now no more ; 
 The task is done, the long day s work is o er; 
 One hour I ll dream thee what thou wert of yore, 
 
 Though changed thou art, too changed to under 
 stand. 
 
 All day sat Michael there with Lucifer, 
 Talking of things unknown to men, old tales 
 And memories dating back beyond all time. 
 And all night long beneath the lonely stars, 
 That watched no more the sins of man, they lay, 
 The angel s lofty face at rest against 
 The dark cheek scarred with thunder. Morning 
 
 came, 
 
 And each departed on his separate way; 
 But each looked back and lingered as he passed. 
 
126 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 THE "MAN-EATER" 
 
 The night is calm, nor threatens ill, 
 Save where two glow-worms glimmer still 
 
 In shadows distant. 
 Unmoving while the moments go, 
 Beyond the Kaffirs tents they glow, 
 
 Bright, strange, insistent. 
 
 Beneath the moonlight s ghostly hush 
 Low crouches in the lonely brush 
 
 A figure tawny, 
 
 Like some old sphinx in granite carved, 
 With hollow flank and visage starved, 
 And muscles brawny. 
 
 Patient, as heathen priests of eld 
 Round gods of blood their vigil held, 
 
 He waits unsleeping, 
 Yet tense as springs of bended steel, 
 With lip drawn back and planted heel, 
 
 His vigil keeping. 
 
 A fearful god he worships there, 
 To whom our fathers offered prayer 
 
 When earth was younger, 
 A power for whom those burning eyes 
 Are altar lamps of sacrifice, 
 
 The god of hunger. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 127 
 
 EARLY DEATH 
 
 Down in the grasses that girdle the stream 
 
 Sits she in light where the summer is warm, 
 Claiming the promise of maidenhood s dream, 
 
 Weaving the wonders the future may form. 
 Daisies in dozens are round on the mold, 
 One she has plucked and its petals has told 
 To a rime that her grandmother chanted of old. 
 
 Rich man poor man beggar man thief, 
 Doctor lawyer merchant chief. 
 
 Which shall it be that the sibyls unfold, 
 Hero or hireling^ the weak or the well, 
 
 Poverty s shadow or sunshine of gold? 
 Nay, I could tell thee but shudder to tell. 
 
 Wan are thy features and wistful to see; 
 
 Others may dream of a bridegroom to be, 
 
 But what have such maidens in common with thee? 
 
 Rich man poor man beggar man thief, 
 Doctor lawyer merchant chief. 
 
 Rich is he, rich with the plunder of time, 
 Poor in the pity a lover should bring, 
 
 Beggar he is for the joy of thy prime, 
 
 Thief of thy youth and the dream of thy spring; 
 
 Doctor he is who all sorrow can heal, 
 
 Lawyer whose pleading no tongue can gainsay, 
 
128 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 Merchant whose traffic no lip may reveal, 
 
 Chieftain of chieftains whom all must obey. 
 Slowly drop through thy fingers lean 
 Petal and prophecy, can it mean 
 That thou knowest the bridegroom who comes 
 unseen ? 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 129 
 
 VOICES FROM ELFLAND 
 
 I. THE APPEAL OF THE FAIRIES 
 
 We make our home among the gurgling brooks, 
 Or through the woods beneath the fragrant pine ; 
 We tent beneath the autumn leaves, and float 
 O er star-lit lake on flower and walnut shell. 
 
 A happy life is ours, we never knew 
 The pain or grief or care that mortals know, 
 Nor ever steeped within our bubbling cup 
 The stagnant herb of bitter melancholy. 
 
 Yet oft the groans of mortals, and the breath 
 Of passionate storms that shake their spirits, come 
 To jar our placid world. The victim s blood 
 Flows gross and feverish from his burning heart 
 Around our dewy grass; and everywhere 
 We hear the voice of aspirations vain, 
 Till the hot air is from your cities blown 
 As from a prairie fire. We come to loathe 
 Your fierce extremes, your hate, your sultry kiss, 
 Your joys that burn themselves to pain, your all. 
 We hate your crucifix, for there survives 
 Man s endless anguish on the dying face; 
 We hate your creed, which forces on our lives 
 Your alien sorrows ; grief has made your drops 
 Of holy water scald like burning tears. 
 
 Sweet flow the hours when ye are far away ; 
 
130 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 Beneath the moon we lie at rest, and breathe 
 The scent of leaf and blade, and water-falls 
 Made pure by winnowing air. And blest it was, 
 Ere man had lived, o er earth to roam at will 
 By tranquil lake and laughing sea, and valleys 
 Where never grave was dug nor tear was shed, 
 While yet the world was ours, nor yet had come 
 With you the clamorous war of sense and soul. 
 
 Mad creatures, mixed of clay and fire, whose eyes 
 Are blinded with your tears, whose ears are deaf 
 With dying sobs, that ye nor see nor hear 
 When hills are fair and cataracts call aloud, 
 What do ye in this lovely world of ours ? 
 Here, like a stranded fish or drowning bird, 
 With glazing eyes, in foreign wonderlands 
 Ye pant for wonders in far, kindred worlds, 
 And live not here nor there. Then leave to us 
 This earth, whose use you never understand. 
 Here, when your stormy race has ceased to be, 
 On moon-lit nights our happy feet will dance 
 Above your grassy hillocks, undisturbed 
 By those burnt ashes from Prometheus torch. 
 
 II. THE STOLEN CHILD 
 
 Beneath the reddening oak tree Margery found 
 A crowd of little people, some in green, 
 And some in red and brown. In the faint light 
 Their dress seemed all of withered autumn leaves. 
 The dim, gray twilight and the starbeams mixed 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 131 
 
 Above their quaint, peaked faces, and grotesque 
 Unchildlike forms, that yet were childish small. 
 
 Then one among them blew a trumpet flower ; 
 And all the rest from harps of elder, strung 
 With spider s film, or else through flutes of grass 
 Sent up a piping music, mixed with song. 
 
 "Come, little princess, come with us," they sang; 
 "We waited long; and long has waited too 
 Your happy home with us, your fairy home. 
 "Tis dark and none will miss you. Sweet it is 
 In elfland. Little princess, come with us. 
 
 Our fathers lived with yours in Paradise 
 Ere Adam sinned ; brothers they were, so close 
 Were once our bloods. We are the only race 
 Who never ate the sad Forbidden Tree. 
 Man ate, and good and evil tear him daily; 
 The angels ate, and even their joys are stern; 
 And Satan ate, we will not talk of him, 
 Nor know him. Little princess, come with us. 
 
 But all the elves through all the years have lived 
 Like happy children; still for us alone 
 The old untainted Eden breathes from clumps 
 Of hazel thicket or from running brook, 
 Or orchards dropping with the peach and pear. 
 Where evil is not is no need of good; 
 And where nor good nor evil is, is peace 
 And peaceful dream, all the sweet, innocent joy 
 Of childhood. Little princess, come with us. 
 
 You are our cousin, so we come to love you; 
 
132 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 You dream like us, and so we understand you ; 
 You are a child, we ll keep you so forever. 
 If you grow old with men, the fatal juice 
 Of that sad Tree will work within your veins 
 Hopes never satisfied, and maddening storms 
 You wish not. Little princess, come with us." 
 
 Dusk deepened into night, and morning came ; 
 But Margery came not, nor was seen again. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 133 
 
 THE LAST NIGHT OF CAPUA 
 
 Far off beneath the stars 
 Camped cold on dewy grass 
 
 The wolf-nursed brood of Mars, 
 Hacked helm and stained cuirass, 
 And shields of dinted brass. 
 
 The old centurion s cheek 
 
 Wrinkled with laughter grim; 
 
 "Dream-children of the Greek^ 
 Who soften heart and limb 
 O er lyre and bumper s brim, 
 
 "Ye had your gold and pearls, 
 Your feast and perfumed bath, 
 
 Your song and laughing girls; 
 Ye had, the Roman hath; 
 Now wake and feel his wrath. 
 
 "Strength rules the world and will, 
 The strength despising joy 
 
 That lives but to fulfill; 
 
 Such force shall Rome employ 
 To build, or to destroy." 
 
134 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 II 
 
 High arched the halls and rich 
 O er gem and purple gown; 
 
 From fount and graven niche 
 The marble gods looked down 
 On those in Capua s town. 
 
 Rare wine in golden bowls 
 The mantling poison held, 
 
 While o er their parting souls 
 Luxurious music swelled, 
 Their sires had loved of eld. 
 
 "Farewell to life," they cried, 
 "To Rome defiant scorn; 
 
 Like men we lived and died, 
 And drank from Plenty s horn 
 Glad night and joyous morn. 
 
 "White arms have lulled our rest, 
 Old wine has warmed our veins ; 
 
 We shared with friend and guest 
 Carved hall and chiming strains, 
 And all that Greece contains. 
 
 "Jeer on, ye Roman powers, 
 Who toil, ye know not why; 
 
 The wiser choice was ours, 
 Strength to be glad and die; 
 Sweet were the days gone by. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 135 
 
 "Life s fairest gift we gained, 
 
 Soft bliss and golden ease; 
 Now that the cup is drained 
 
 Let Rome enjoy the lees." 
 
 So darkness covered these. 
 
136 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 THE COMING OF PEACE 
 
 "When cometh Peace?" the heathen wailed of old 
 
 From rack and blazing home; and God replied: 
 "Not yet, while passions fierce and uncontrolled 
 
 Make Peace a nation s harlot, not a bride. 
 Not while the pang that searches nerve and vein 
 
 Alone can rouse to life the stagnant soul 
 In brutal lands, where ease from war and strain 
 
 But heralds lust and fills the drunkard s bowl." 
 
 "When cometh Peace?" went up the Orient s groan. 
 
 Not yet, while life becomes it own worst foe 
 With teeming birth, and War s red axe alone 
 
 Through human forest hews the room to grow; 
 Not yet, while power is still the victim s dream, 
 
 And tyranny the meanest slave s delight, 
 Where Tamerlane and Ghengis Khan but seem 
 
 Composite pictures of the men they smite. 
 
 "When cometh Peace?" is now the world s appeal. 
 
 Not yet, though far her hastening steps we hear ; 
 Not while her bristling angels, armed in steel, 
 
 On cowering lands impose the truce of fear, 
 Not while we force a code on murmuring foes 
 
 Which our own rulers violate and annul; 
 Not while the only peace each nation knows 
 
 Would give themselves the Land Debatable. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 137 
 
 "When cometh Peace?" Upon the mountains now 
 
 Those beauteous feet the gladsome tidings bear; 
 But I shall see her bridal not, nor thou; 
 
 Nor man shall win till man has learned to wear. 
 No cry of bards, no long-conferring kings 
 
 Shall ever make the battle s thunder dumb; 
 When winter s blasts are o er the violet springs, 
 
 When earth is ripe for Peace then Peace will 
 come. 
 
138 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 THOUGHTS ON OPENING WEBSTER S 
 DICTIONARY 
 
 I turn with awe this ponderous volume o er, 
 This household counselor, these finely wrought 
 
 And hammered keys that open door on door 
 
 Through the vast treasury of a people s thought. 
 
 I linger here o er Milton s quoted phrase 
 As Indian rajahs o er a diamond may, 
 
 And see sometimes within its facets blaze 
 
 A gleam that flashed from God s eternal day. 
 
 And these old roots of words, that seem to stand 
 So dull and dry upon the printed page, 
 
 Take on beneath imagination s hand 
 
 The charm of history and the rime of age. 
 
 Here s evolution more than Darwin taught 
 In these ancestral footprints; here behold 
 
 The spirit growth of nations, word and thought 
 Developing each other from of old. 
 
 What spirit first upon his lonely beach 
 Felt solitude like ocean round him roll, 
 
 And launched the ships of passion-laden speech, 
 Columbus-like, to find a brother soul? 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 139 
 
 What words were those that ventured outward 
 bound, 
 
 Those clumsy craft, those first rude pioneers, 
 Where now the mighty galleons of sound 
 
 Waft on the thought of twice a thousand years ? 
 
 Were they the brute s low call of pain and greed, 
 Or sounds man echoed back and knew not why ? 
 
 Or growing notes to voice a growing need, 
 Like Caliban s half- formulated cry? 
 
 And through the centuries since what change was 
 
 here 
 
 As click and guttural s broken hints were turned 
 To spirit-molded music, breathing clear, 
 
 To bear what Plato dreamed and Newton 
 learned. 
 
 Still mid the minds that think and hearts that feel, 
 Expressing what was never yet expressed, 
 
 New ships of sound are launched on chiming keel, 
 To bear some new Columbus through the west. 
 
 Still many a word is token and no more, 
 
 Frail envoy of a thought no speech can bear ; 
 
 Who shall interpret, say, these letters four, 
 
 This one word "Life"? The universe is there. 
 
140 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 Or take this other, "Love"; its meanings go 
 
 From height to depth through vast creation s 
 whole, 
 
 From flowers that waft their pollen to and fro 
 To God s all-seeing eye and moving soul. 
 
 And here, the joy of life, the balm of death, 
 The star of martyrs, comfort of mankind, 
 
 Is this word "Faith," a syllable, a breath, 
 
 A marsh-fire s lamp, and boundless night behind. 
 
 Brave Webster, noble Webster, you did well; 
 
 But yet through many a year must language 
 
 grow 
 Ere man to man shall have the power to tell 
 
 One half the things that now we think we know. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 141 
 
 A VISION OF EVIL 
 
 I saw a realm at midnight still, 
 
 (Who knows if this be dream or true?) 
 Where earth s discarded souls of ill 
 
 The scorn of God together blew. 
 There floats unceasing to and fro 
 
 The chaff from heaven s threshing floor, 
 Through endless ages waning slow, 
 
 For evil fades for evermore. 
 
 They waste like leaves on winter s tree; 
 
 (Who knows if this be dream or true?) 
 The newly come are fair to see, 
 
 As when they walked with me and you. 
 But souls of eld are faint and thin 
 
 Like vapors blown on ocean shore, 
 And life is moldering deep within, 
 
 For evil fades for evermore. 
 
 There moves Napoleon splendid still, 
 
 (Who knows if this be dream or true?) 
 With flashing eyes and kingly will, 
 
 As when he rode to Waterloo. 
 But Timur scarce has form of man, 
 
 And pride and memory all are o er; 
 The stars gleam through his phantom wan, 
 
 For evil fades for evermore. 
 
142 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 The queen Antonius loved and kissed, 
 
 (Who knows if this be dream or true?) 
 Is thinner now than parting mist. 
 
 And mind and will have withered too. 
 And nought is left of Priam s boy, 
 
 Who drew the ships to Ilion s shore, 
 For, sinful wrath or selfish joy, 
 
 All evil fades for evermore. 
 
 And round them moves, a ghostly blur, 
 
 (Who knows if this be dream or true?) 
 The Soul of Evil, Lucifer, 
 
 As he has done the ages through. 
 He thinks no more of thrones and wars, 
 
 No trace is his of glory o er; 
 He floats like fog across the stars, 
 
 His power is fading evermore. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 143 
 
 WASTED SEEDS 
 
 The seed that never grew 
 
 Had life within the germ; 
 But skies withheld their dew, 
 
 And fields but gave the worm ; 
 What matter? Earth has seeds to spare and not a 
 
 few. 
 
 The soul that never bloomed 
 
 Had dreams of God within; 
 But want its life consumed, 
 
 And curse for others sin; 
 What matter? Earth has souls enough though 
 
 these were doomed. 
 
 The tribe that fades away 
 
 Had visions fair as we; 
 But withered stalks are they, 
 
 Whose race shall cease to be ; 
 What matter? Earth has tribes enough though 
 
 these decay. 
 
 What matter? Yet the cry 
 
 Goes up and is not stilled; 
 Life s verdure waxes high 
 
 Where love and wisdom tilled; 
 But who shall hush the sob of wasted seeds that die? 
 
144 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 THE BUTTERFLY 
 
 THE MAN 
 
 Dancer throned at Summer s board, 
 
 Butterfly, 
 Even while thy wine is poured 
 
 Death is nigh. 
 One short hour of balm and sun 
 
 Thou hast had; 
 Lo, at thy feast the skeleton; 
 
 Why so glad? 
 
 THE INSECT 
 
 Hast thou ever known extreme 
 
 Joys and fears? 
 Did not then a moment seem 
 
 Like to years ? 
 When thy heart was keen with grief, 
 
 Or with glee, 
 Were not hours to others brief 
 
 Long for thee? 
 Time s a word ; whole worlds are found 
 
 In drops of dew, 
 And eternity s vast round 
 
 In moments few. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 145 
 
 While I sip the wine of youth 
 
 From the cup, 
 Dreams that last as long as truth 
 
 Bubble up. 
 Ages past and more to come 
 
 Live I through 
 While but once the pendulum 
 
 Swings for you. 
 When I part from summer s beam, 
 
 Leaf and flower, 
 All eternity will seem 
 
 But an hour. 
 
 THE MAN 
 
 Art thou fly or Psyche, thou, 
 
 Learned so deep? 
 What do human spirits now, 
 
 Do they sleep? 
 
 THE INSECT 
 
 Fly or Psyche, who can tell? 
 
 A voice am I, 
 Speaking things you shall know well 
 
 By and by. 
 Life for me will be forgot 
 
 When I am through ; 
 You must ask your Father what 
 
 It is for you. 
 
146 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 Yet if they sleep, a dream has blest 
 
 The eyes that slept 
 Which all eternity compressed 
 
 Within it kept. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 147 
 
 THE ORIOLE 
 
 Chorister of air, 
 
 On the bough of spring, 
 What melodious throat and where 
 
 Taught thee thus to sing? 
 From what isle remote 
 
 Out of man s control, 
 Came thy clear, untroubled note, 
 Oriole? 
 
 What did Eden lose 
 
 That doth here endure, 
 
 Gushing forth as waters ooze, 
 Effortless and pure? 
 
 Why can I not know, 
 God in shape and role, 
 
 Whence thy heart rejoices so, 
 Oriole ? 
 
 When God made thy brain 
 
 Like a silver bell, 
 Forged He other nerves of pain, 
 
 Other joys as well? 
 Was the dream that poured 
 
 Music in thy soul 
 Older than the Flaming Sword, 
 Oriole? 
 
148 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 Nay, too surely, bird, 
 
 More thy song conveyed 
 Through this human brain that heard 
 
 Than the brain that made. 
 Not thy voice, but one 
 
 Echoing in my soul, 
 Hints all truth, revealing none, 
 Oriole. 
 
 Yet at Wisdom s feet 
 
 Was learned thy mimic trill; 
 Soulless echoes thus repeat 
 
 God on Horeb s hill. 
 Deep in learning s maze 
 
 Delve we like the mole; 
 Thou hast drunk the Maker s days, 
 Oriole. 
 
 Truths there are that here 
 
 Reason cannot find, 
 Where her eyes are piercing clear, 
 
 Nathless color-blind. 
 Lights there are whose hues 
 
 Change creation s whole, 
 Which thy thoughtless song renews, 
 Oriole. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 149 
 
 Music like thy staves 
 
 Surely ne er can flow 
 From our gilded galley-slaves, 
 
 Living but to row. 
 Mightier lamps are dark, 
 
 Dry wick and empty bowl; 
 What oil has fed thy tiny spark, 
 Oriole? 
 
 God, whose fingers press 
 
 Life s unthinking keys, 
 Pouring thoughts that none express 
 
 Through such pipes as these, 
 When the skies are rent 
 
 Like a rending scroll 
 Tell me what Thy music meant, 
 Thy oriole. 
 
150 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 THE NIGHT-WATCH 
 
 (From a painting representing lions prowling at 
 night around the ruins of Nineveh.) 
 
 Slowly at midnight lone 
 Round dust and nodding stone 
 Of Nineveh o erthrown 
 
 The night-watch makes its round, 
 Bright burning eyes of awe, 
 Low purr and stealthy paw, 
 Soldiers that know no law 
 
 Which man has found. 
 
 Well might the Buddhist seer 
 Think buried kings severe 
 Came back incarnate here 
 
 In kindred beasts of prey. 
 And so we too the while, 
 Half with a doubting smile, 
 May dream, while that grim file 
 
 Moves on its way. 
 
 Speak, thou mysterious guard, 
 Lank cheek and body scarred, 
 Find ye your penance hard 
 Through all this vast of time, 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 151 
 
 Souls of the kings of eld, 
 Who against God rebelled, 
 Proud of the realms ye held, 
 Drunken with crime? 
 
 Where now your answers glib, 
 Starved throat and hollow rib, 
 Long-fanged Sennacherib, 
 
 Tiglath with yellow mane? 
 What wine has vengeance poured 
 In realms yet unexplored 
 For those who by the sword 
 
 Slay and are slain? 
 
 Say, has a power been found 
 
 More strong than monarchs crowned? 
 
 Have those sharp swords you ground 
 
 Failed there, so mighty here? 
 Have ye no truth to tell 
 Might fit the present well, 
 Where still your sons would swell 
 
 The reign of fear? 
 
 Here where your wine ye quaffed, 
 At captives anguish laughed, 
 And notched the hunter s shaft, 
 
 What thoughts to-night are yours? 
 Cannot those silent jaws 
 Ope once in Mercy s cause, 
 To tell us God has laws 
 
 And God endures? 
 
152 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 Pass on with stealthy tread, 
 Brutes ravening to be fed, 
 Or souls of tyrants dead, 
 
 Whiche er ye be, goodnight. 
 O er Nineveh s decay 
 For lions comes the day, 
 And for dead kings the sway 
 
 Of Peace and Right. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 153 
 
 SHAKESPEARE TO IMOGEN 
 
 Dear saint, my soul was marred and stained 
 
 That built thy shrine; 
 But holy, sweet, and unprofaned 
 
 It treasured thine. 
 
 Let this reveal while I and thou 
 
 Through years endure, 
 How worldly, sinful men may bow 
 
 To women pure. 
 
 Thou art not I, but art of me, 
 
 My child of thought, 
 The thing that I had longed to be, 
 
 And yet was not. 
 
154 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 TRUTH 
 
 Truth veiled her face from men 
 
 In days of eld ; 
 Glimpses alone since then 
 
 Have we beheld. 
 
 The Hebrew moved aside 
 
 That curtain s fold; 
 "Worship is truth/ he cried 
 
 O er rituals old. 
 
 The Greek with trembling hand 
 
 That face laid bare; 
 What he could understand 
 
 Was Beauty there. 
 
 Her veil the Roman drew 
 
 With martial awe; 
 He saw but what he knew, 
 
 And whispered, "Law." 
 
 The monk of Europe dreamed 
 
 In cloisters dim; 
 As inward vision seemed 
 
 Her face to him. 
 
 And we in glimpses rare 
 
 On that high brow, 
 O er rights that all may share 
 
 See Freedom now. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 155 
 
 Ah, Truth, the world s long dream 
 
 But shows us thee 
 As in some whirling stream 
 
 The stars we see. 
 
 Sweet face in fragments glassed 
 
 On waves that break, 
 Who shall from these at last 
 
 Thy image make ? 
 
156 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 THE DIVINE COMEDY OF TO-DAY 
 
 INFERNO 
 
 Three faces in the crowd; 
 
 What saw st thou there? 
 
 Like Farinata s one was scarred and proud, 
 And still for all its pride left quivering bare 
 
 Sin s agonized despair. 
 
 PURGATORIO 
 
 Three souls amid the crowd; 
 
 They passed like dreams; 
 With tearful eyes the second head was bowed ; 
 But o er it shone, like light on bitter streams, 
 
 The sorrow that redeems. 
 
 PARADISO 
 
 Three worlds amid the crowd, 
 
 So near yet far; 
 
 Joy kindled all the third like burning cloud; 
 Love rose, like Beatrice from her mystic car, 
 
 To lead from star to star. 
 
 Three faces in the crowd, 
 
 Life old and new. 
 
 Oh, soul of Dante, thus by God endowed, 
 Six centuries men have lived and died since you; 
 
 And yet your song is true. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 157 
 
 A FAIRY STORY 
 
 "Now tell me why is your hair so white, 
 
 You stern old man from across the way; 
 And why did you wait so long to-night 
 
 By the grassy grave where the roses lay?" 
 "You are young, my child, and to understand 
 
 You must live and suffer -for many a day; 
 Come, I ll tell you a story of fairy land, 
 
 To help you in whiling the hours away." 
 
 Far under the wilds of the storm-swept snow 
 
 In the silent caves of the Northern Pole, 
 Where over the plains the whirlwinds blow, 
 
 Was the home of the elf-king Imranole. 
 All bright with silver and veined with gold 
 
 Were those caverns hammered by gnome and 
 
 troll; 
 But lonely ever and wintry cold 
 
 Was the heart of the elfin Imranole. 
 But once on a night that was fierce with frost, 
 
 When the ice would burn you like burning coal, 
 A mortal maiden, whose way was lost, 
 
 Came, none know how, to the Northern Pole. 
 The icicles hung in her yellow hair 
 
 As her trembling feet o er the threshold stole; 
 Without was the dark and the polar bear, 
 
 And she made her dwelling with Imranole. 
 
158 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 Never a whisper nor mortal sound 
 
 Was heard in those caves of the Northern Pole, 
 Where the maiden sat as the years rolled round, 
 
 Taught and tended by gnome and troll, 
 Till her terror died, and a mighty love 
 
 Over her heart like music stole; 
 And the bridal lamps gleamed bright above, 
 
 As she knelt by her lover, soul to soul. 
 But there came a call from the realms of death, 
 
 From the God of Sorrows, whom none control, 
 So hard is heaven to earth beneath; 
 
 And she died on the bosom of Imranole. 
 They laid her deep in the frozen clay, 
 
 And heaped the snow in a wintry knoll, 
 Where the Northern Lights at midnight play 
 
 O er the buried bride of the Northern Pole. 
 And there when the winds blow wild and bleak 
 
 From ancient glacier and icy shoal, 
 The tear drops freeze on the withered cheek 
 
 Of a lonely watcher, tis Imranole. 
 His hair streams white on the howling blast, 
 
 And his beard waves white, like a floating scroll ; 
 And I know his grief by a sorrow past, 
 
 And the silent bond of a kindred soul. 
 
 "But really, truly, and was it so, 
 
 You stern old man from across the way? 
 
 And why is your voice so strange and low, 
 And why are you crying at what you say?" 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 159 
 
 "0 child, sometime you will understand, 
 My friends are few, and my head is gray; 
 
 But this was a story of fairy land. 
 And the Northern Pole is far away" 
 
160 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 THE SEACOAST IN WINTER 
 
 The stinging winds alternate freeze and burn; 
 
 Chill gleams the twilight where the sun went 
 
 down, 
 Four threads of cloud across it, faint and stern, 
 
 Like scars across the lost archangel s frown. 
 
 Cold, dark, forbidding heaves the wintry surge; 
 
 The frozen rocks are drenched with icy spray ; 
 One lonely steamer on the horizon s verge 
 
 Seems numbed and torpid, crawling on its way. 
 
 A fierce, strange thrill pervades all out-of-doors, 
 Grip of wild hands, half friendly and half foe ; 
 
 The iron night grows darker down the shores ; 
 Suffering yet glad I breast the winds that blow. 
 
 Here stirs the life that warmed the old sea-kings 
 To scoucge the laggard blood in heart and vein, 
 
 The warrior joy that like Athena springs 
 
 Full armed and conquering from the head of 
 Pain. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 161 
 
 SCHOOL-GIRLS 
 
 They pass like flowers afloat 
 
 On summer air, 
 Gold locket at the throat 
 
 And wind-kissed hair. 
 
 Still fresh the dew of youth 
 
 Around them falls; 
 Through visions robed like truth 
 
 The future calls. 
 
 Speak not, their dream revere; 
 
 Yet mourn we may 
 For other school-girls here 
 
 Who dreamed as they. 
 
 How fare those now for whom 
 Life beckoned splendid? 
 
 Unlike their dream and doom, 
 Their vision ended. 
 
 No mighty grief nor wrong 
 
 Could they disclose; 
 Dream tragedies are song, 
 
 But life s are prose. 
 
 Yet mournful from the past 
 Their words float hither: 
 
 "Few hopes will thunder blast; 
 But many wither." 
 
162 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 THE EVENTLESS TRAGEDY 
 
 A DYING WOMAN SPEAKS 
 
 Sister, remain and watch to-night. 
 
 There are ghastly hours between twelve and 
 
 morn; 
 
 And I think of what never has come to light, 
 Of all in my life that has died unborn, 
 Till the air seems filled witk the whisperings 
 Of the haunting ghosts of the unborn things, 
 Now that my evil and good are done. 
 
 There was love, twofold in its mystic thrill, 
 
 With its soft inweaving of will in will, 
 
 And two worlds made one through the eyes of two ; 
 
 But its death was old ere its life was new. 
 And Sloth and Mammon bend hushed above 
 The beautiful face of that still-born Love, 
 Now that my sordid life is done. 
 
 There were voices of children in elflands green, 
 With a mother s ease like a hedge between ; 
 Eyes she had longed for and dreamed of seeing, 
 Eyes that she never had called to being. 
 
 And the air seems filled with the moan forlorn 
 Of the clinging ghosts of the babes unborn, 
 Now that my indolent life is done. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 163 
 
 There was joy of nature and song and art, 
 That I might have nursed in my lonely heart, 
 Soft shoots that time would have rendered firm. 
 But they shrank and withered in bud and germ. 
 And my hours of boredom are coffined there 
 Where the thoughts of the mighty were mine to 
 
 share, 
 Now that my aimless life is done. 
 
 There was need without and my wealth within, 
 And the pleasure that makes us of God s own kin 
 In a sympathy wide as the race of man. 
 But its whispers died ere they well began. 
 And the clerks of hell are in Midnight s tent 
 To audit the books of the trust I spent, 
 Now that my thoughtless life is done. 
 
 There were life-giving dreams for that near unseen, 
 That died in the march of our dull routine, 
 Things that God never had meant to die, 
 But we killed them within me the world and I 
 And the shades are in judgment, the doom defer- 
 
 ring 
 
 Of a soul that quickened and died in stirring; 
 And the clocks of midnight are tolling one 
 For a life that was ended but ne er begun, 
 For a life that was wasted, and now is done. 
 
164 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 THE VISIT TO THE OLD FARM 
 
 Far lies the cramped and clanging street 
 Where now my paths of life are cast ; 
 Like withered leaves the buried past 
 
 Seems rustling here around my feet. 
 
 No tree that buds on all these lands, 
 Nor tumbling wall, nor sagging rail, 
 Nor tufted sod on plain or swale, 
 
 But bears the touch of buried hands. 
 
 Tis haunted ground, rock, hill, and spring. 
 Five generations of my dead 
 Have worn it with their lifelong tread, 
 
 And made the soil a kindred thing. 
 
 In dreams through changing visions rolled 
 Forgotten toil my hands pursue, 
 While wakes the spell my childhood knew, 
 The unlonely loneliness of old. 
 
 Again behind the plowman s share 
 The robin pecks with watchful eye; 
 And through the blue and boundless sky 
 
 The darting swallows wheel in air. 
 
 The daisy falls, a twinkling spark, 
 
 Where through the grass the mower drives ; 
 And childlike shrinks between the knives 
 
 The flower that bore the meadow lark. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 165 
 
 Through yonder woods in winter hoar, 
 When drearily moans the forest bleak, 
 And frost makes tree and timber creak, 
 
 We fell the hermit trunks once more. 
 
 Loud rings the axe in woodlands lone; 
 And gnarled oak and tapering ash 
 With warning crack and shattering crash 
 
 Come thundering down on bush and stone. 
 
 Penurious life it was, and hard; 
 
 But boundless sweep of vale and hill 
 Enringed our day, and vast and still 
 
 Looked down the night from heaven o er- 
 starred. 
 
 Streams choose a random course, but then 
 Flow ever there; our youth no less 
 Builds random laws of happiness 
 
 By which we laugh or weep as men. 
 
 Still breathes the charm from rock and fall, 
 From sprouting corn and crumpled fern, 
 Lone, somber, sexless, dumb, and stern, 
 
 But luring as the siren s call. 
 
 Still solitude will own her child, 
 And harsh old mother Nature hers; 
 Unlaid the ghost of memory stirs, 
 
 The dream, the summons of the wild. 
 
166 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 ON PLACING A TOMBSTONE OVER MY 
 FATHER S GRAVE 
 
 The air is hushed, and quiet all the scene ; 
 
 In sunlight gleam the kindred graves around; 
 As o er these summer grasses, springing green, 
 
 We place this stone above this lowly mound. 
 
 Unmarked he lived and unregarded died 
 
 Who slumbers here; much dared, endured, and 
 willed ; 
 
 Seemed great to friends and God and none beside, 
 Foundation deep where fates denied to build. 
 
 Yet, dust beloved, couldst thou but know how crowd 
 Thick coming memories round thy noteless bed, 
 
 Thou might st be proud to know thy children proud 
 Of their unknown, unstained, unconquered dead. 
 
 Obscure and shunned the path twas his to go, 
 
 Yet one at which the boldest heart might quail, 
 
 Through bitter, hopeless years descending slow 
 Disease s dark, Apollyon-haunted vale. 
 
 Despair and anguish round on every hand, 
 
 And Reason rocking on her crumbling throne, 
 
 Few sympathizing, none to understand, 
 
 He fought his dreary fight unhelped, alone. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 167 
 
 The hero s death is all his children s pride. 
 
 Is not his praise as great who dared to live, 
 When every day in lingering pain he died, 
 
 And death was all that life had left to give ? 
 
 Less brave than Plassey s conquering chief or more 
 Was he, who watched through nights with anguish 
 long, 
 
 To shun, Ulysses-like, that fatal shore 
 
 Where floats the opiate siren s drowsy song? 
 
 Failed every hope whence youths their manhood 
 
 draw; 
 
 And Reason setting knew what night ensued; 
 Such foes as happier courage never saw 
 
 Walked through the dusk, and found him unsub 
 dued. 
 
 And still his love for those he left behind, 
 
 While yet one spark of dying memory stayed, 
 
 Like sunset flames lit up that ruined mind, 
 
 Till darkness gathering wrapped the whole in 
 shade. 
 
 O father flesh and brother spirit, still 
 
 From out thy dust thy voice ascends to me; 
 
 Whene er in life shall bend my wavering will 
 
 Here will I kneel and draw in strength from thee. 
 
168 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 Thine was the Roman face and Roman soul 
 Of old Pompeii s sentry ; father, thou 
 
 Saw st clouds more dread than his o er heaven roll, 
 Stood st faithful at thy post, and sleepest now. 
 
 Thou need st no further honor, art but one 
 Of many more, a long, unnoticed line ; 
 
 Yet not in vain thy nameless task was done ; 
 
 The strength of nations roots in graves like thine. 
 
 Here o er his dust we raise this humble stone ; 
 
 And be the dying words of Paul for him, 
 "A goodly fight I fought, my race I won, 
 
 My faith I kept." Away, the night grows dim. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 169 
 
 THE FAREWELL TO REASON 
 
 Sweet Comforter of other years, 
 I hear thy soft withdrawing tread ; 
 
 Thy voice is yet within mine ears, 
 
 But sounds like echoes from the dead. 
 
 Now child and drudge and Folly hoar 
 Shall share at least some glimpse of thee ; 
 
 But, blest Interpreter, no more 
 Shall thou and I companions be. 
 
 We traced the dome that Darwin piled, 
 With Herschel saw the planets roll, 
 
 And oft the evening hours beguiled 
 With Mozart s lyre and Plato s scroll. 
 
 Through thee the voice of wife and friend 
 Came chiming soft and silver clear; 
 
 Twas thine those angel notes to blend 
 Which ruined mind shall never hear. 
 
 But now these chords too finely spun, 
 This spirit-harp within my brain, 
 
 I feel them snapping one by one, 
 Amid the dread no words explain. 
 
 I see behind the Flaming Sword, 
 The vales of Eden trod no more ; 
 
 And bitter, dark, and unexplored 
 The alien deserts wait before. 
 
170 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 THE CORN-HUSKERS 
 OR OLD NEW ENGLAND 
 
 In open field in autumn weather 
 We sat and husked the corn together; 
 No sound was heard but far and low 
 The rumbling cart and cawing crow. 
 
 The weather-beaten shocks around 
 Seemed hermits old with sun embrowned, 
 Above the stubble gaunt and bare 
 You half might think they knelt in prayer. 
 
 We spoke of him by Avon s stream, 
 Of Byron s fire and Shelley s dream, 
 What Huss endured and Luther wrought, 
 And Berkeley s fairy world of thought. 
 
 Still fast the yellow ears we stripped 
 Across the basket s edges slipped, 
 The withered stalks our fingers stirred 
 Kept rustling time to every word. 
 
 No scholars we ; but hearts that long, 
 Find much where most they reason wrong; 
 And Truth herself seemed speaking near 
 By withered husk and ripened ear. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 171 
 
 Now o er the stubble gaunt and bare 
 Plods on the foreign hireling there; 
 And thou and I in autumn weather 
 No more shall husk the corn together. 
 
 With chilling blood and weary brow 
 I change romance for knowledge now; 
 And thou beneath the moldering ground 
 No longer tell st what thou hast found. 
 
172 THE WORLD THAT GOD DESTROYED 
 
 THE FAMILY BIBLE 
 
 Grave Book of Ages, hope in hours of terror 
 
 For those who now shake hands with truth divine, 
 
 Some say thy reign is done, thy wisdom error, 
 But rule thou still my father s house and mine. 
 
 God never meant between thy leaves to send us 
 Reply to all our questions, urged in vain ; 
 
 His truth, like ocean s flood, is too tremendous 
 For human cup to hold, or lip to drain. 
 
 But still in pondering o er these mighty questions 
 Which none but God can solve, through thee we 
 
 grow 
 
 More like to God, who knows them; vague sugges 
 tions 
 Enlarge the spirit-cup where truth may flow. 
 
 And round thy solemn text, by buried fathers 
 Made corner-stone of council, fort, and shrine, 
 
 A crowd of thoughts from years forgotten gathers, 
 A spirit margin, glossing every line. 
 
 That margin is the comment of the ages 
 
 On doubt and answer, faith, and good, and sin, 
 
 The truth that man read into these old pages 
 No less the truth than that inscribed within. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 173 
 
 Whate er this book had first of God s bestowing, 
 Direct or not its message from above, 
 
 Round it, like vines upon a trellis growing, 
 
 Hang now our sweetest flowers of thought and 
 love. 
 
 The martyr s blood its cherished page has blotted; 
 Dumb worlds grew vocal round it, "ay" or 
 
 "nay" ; 
 Dead lips have kissed it; tears the words have 
 
 spotted 
 Which say that God shall wipe all tears away. 
 
 star of morning, dim in shadows darkling, 
 Faint hint of light no mortal eyes can bear, 
 
 Like Galahad s Grail I see thy promise sparkling 
 Above the dead to bid me follow there. 
 
 From out thy page the wakened visions flying 
 Like sibyls leaves are scattered to and fro. 
 
 1 ask, and seem to hear a voice replying, 
 
 "Man grows by asking, though he ne er may 
 know." 
 
14 DAY USE 
 
 RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED 
 
 LOAN DEPT. 
 
 RENEWALS ONLYTEL NO. 642-3405 
 This book is due on the last date stamped below, or 
 
 on the date to which renewed 
 Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. 
 
 UCLA 
 
 
 INTERLIBRARY L< 
 
 >AN 
 
 NOV 1 2 196 
 
 
 ONE MONTH AFTSRRH-H 
 
 1 
 
 ECx: 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 LD21A-60m-6, 69 
 (J9096slO)476-A-32 
 
 General Library 
 
 University of California 
 
 Berkeley 
 
255792