THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 THE TONGUES OF TOIL
 
 THE TONGUES OF TOIL 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM FRANCIS BARNARD 
 
 THE FRATERNAL PRESS 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
 1911
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1910 
 BY WILLIAM FRANCIS BARNARD 
 
 80
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 author of this volume has long treas 
 ured in intent the creation of a body of 
 verse which should set forth, however imper 
 fectly, the spirit of the great cause of labor. 
 Certain writings of William Morris, poet and 
 craftsman, and the utterances of Tolstoy re 
 specting the relations of art to a common hu 
 manity, have helped to point the way, and 
 now, at length, the fruits of his toil are gath 
 ered together in these pages, and the writer s 
 ambition is fulfilled. 
 
 He cannot allow these poems to leave his 
 hands, however, without bearing testimony to 
 the truth, that the cause of labor, which is but 
 the cause of humanity at large, is more inspir 
 ing to the poet, and more fruitful of results 
 than is any other source of creative effort. The 
 red blood of a united race courses through his 
 veins, and thrills him who sings the songs of 
 toil, and takes a pleasure in the singing. 
 
 This volume includes a few poems from the 
 author s earlier book, "The Moods of Life". 
 These are added because they are in peculiar 
 harmony with the spirit of these pages, and 
 because the volume in which they originally 
 appeared was issued in a limited edition. 
 
 1967921
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE TONGUES OF TOIL ..... 13 
 
 FRANCISCO FERRER ..... 16 
 
 THE HANGMAN ...... 19 
 
 JOY AND LABOR ...... 22 
 
 To A. M. B 23 
 
 A RHAPSODY . . . . . . 26 
 
 PROGRESS ....... 29 
 
 THE LAST DAYS OF MAMMON ... 32 
 
 MARGARETA MARTENEZ ..... 33 
 
 THE REVELATION ..... 40 
 
 LABOR S ANSWER ...... 41 
 
 HOPE AND EFFORT ..... 43 
 
 THE MADNESS OF GOLD ..... 44 
 
 THE END OF WOOD CUTTING .... 47 
 
 A VISION . ... . . . -49 
 
 LOVE AND HATE ...... 50 
 
 THE MEETING OF THE WINDS ... 52 
 
 Two POWERS ...... 54 
 
 THE DEAD FINANCIER . . . . -57 
 
 A JUDGMENT ...... 58 
 
 THE CHILDREN OF THE LOOMS . . . -59 
 
 ix.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 SLOW, SLOW ...... 62 
 
 THE NEWER HEMLOCK ..... 64 
 
 THE GUILLOTINE ..... 65 
 
 FAILURE ....... 69 
 
 THE DEATH OF A TOILER . . . . 71 
 
 No BONDAGE FOR ME 75 
 
 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT .... 76 
 
 SACRAMENT ....... 77 
 
 Music ....... 79 
 
 ARDORS ....... 80 
 
 THE THIEF OF TIME ..... 81 
 
 ON AN INFANT BURIED IN WINTER . -83 
 
 MAN S FRIEND ...... 84 
 
 To A ROBIN . . . . . .86 
 
 LOOKING ON THE SIERRAS . . . 88 
 
 THE GIRL OF THE ROSE ..... 89 
 
 HYMN OF LABOR ..... 90 
 
 To THE MASTERS ...... 93 
 
 THE ROISTERING KNIGHTS .... 94 
 
 OCEAN AFTER THE STORM . . . -97 
 
 THE VOICELESS LYRE .... 99 
 
 To FAUSTA ....... 100 
 
 ROSE AND LILY . . . . . . 101 
 
 INVOCATION ....... 102 
 
 A WARNING ...... 105 
 
 IN A CITY GRAVEYARD . . . . .107
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 COURAGE, MY HEART . . . . . 113 
 
 WARRIOR TRUTH . . . . . . 115 
 
 LABOR S TRAGEDY . . . . . 117 
 
 To MY COUNTRY . . . . . .118 
 
 WHAT SHALL IT PROFIT A MAN.? . . . 119 
 
 A CAGED BIRD S SONG ..... 122 
 
 THE BABY S SMILE ..... 123 
 
 PLACE DE LA CONCORDE ..... 124 
 
 To THE ENEMIES OF FREE SPEECH . . . 127 
 
 THE RED FLAG ...... 128 
 
 IN THE HOUR OF EXECUTION . . . 132 
 
 THE ABANDONED MILL ..... 134 
 
 IBSEN . . . . . . 143 
 
 A DESIRE ....... 144 
 
 To THE COLD ...... 146 
 
 THE AGITATOR . . . . . . 147 
 
 THE CHALLENGE OF LIBERTY . . . 150 
 His FIRST SNOW . . . . . .151 
 
 MAGDALENE PASSES . . . . . 152 
 
 PLUTOS AND DEMOS . . . . .157 
 
 IN RENUNCIATION ..... 158 
 
 THE MODERN TYRANT . . . . .159 
 
 THE RULER ...... 160 
 
 FRIENDSHIP ....... 161 
 
 To CERTAIN WRITERS ..... 163 
 
 ANNOUNCEMENT ...... 165 
 
 XI.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 COMPENSATION . . . . . . 167 
 
 THE CRY OF HUMANITY ..... 168 
 
 MARTYDOM ...... 171 
 
 NOVEMBER VIOLETS . . . . . . 173 
 
 STRIKE ....... 174 
 
 A DAY OF RECKONING . . . 177 
 
 WIND OF THE DAWN ..... 178 
 
 THE BELLS ...... 180 
 
 THE ROOKS ...... 182 
 
 GREATNESS . . . . . . . 184 
 
 WAITING ....... 185 
 
 THE PROMISE ...... 188 
 
 THE UNSPOKEN ..... 189 
 
 HUMANHOOD . . . . . . .190 
 
 COMRADES ...... 191 
 
 xn.
 
 THE TONGUES OF TOIL 
 
 F\O you hear us call from a hundred lands, 
 Lords of a dying name? 
 
 We are the men of the sinewed hands 
 Whom the earth and the seas acclaim. 
 
 We are the hordes which have made you lords, 
 And gathered your gear and spoil, 
 
 And we speak with a word that shall be heard 
 Hark to the tongues of toil ! 
 
 The power of your hands it falls at .last, 
 
 The strength of your rule is o er, 
 Where the might of a million slaves is massed 
 
 To the shouts of a million more. 
 We rise, we rise, neath the western skies, 
 
 And the dawns of the east afar ; 
 And our myriads swarm in the southlands 
 warm, 
 
 And under the northern star!
 
 THE TONGUES OF TOIL 
 
 We take no thought of the fears you feel, 
 
 And the rage you hold at heart, 
 Nor of all your strength of the gold and steel 
 
 Enthroned at the gates of the mart. 
 We have no care for the deeds you dare, 
 
 For the force of your armies hurled; 
 You stand but few, and we challenge you 
 
 Strong men of all the world ! 
 
 We served as your fools when time was young, 
 
 And long, long, we forbore, 
 Glad of the niggard boons you flung, 
 
 The least of your ample store ; 
 But the gnawing pain of a starving brain 
 
 Is great as the belly need 
 We have learned at last from a hungry past 
 
 The joys of a rebel deed ! 
 
 We come, we come, with the force of fate ; 
 
 We are not weak, but strong. 
 We parley not, and we cannot wait; 
 
 We march with a freeman s song. 
 We claim for meed what a life can need 
 
 That lives as a life should live 
 Not less, not more, from the plenteous store 
 
 Which free-born labors give !
 
 THE TONGUES OF TOIL 
 
 We will shape a world as a world should be, 
 
 With room and enough for all. 
 We will rear a race of the wise and free, 
 
 And not of the great and small. 
 And the heart and the mind of humankind 
 
 Shall drink to the dregs of good, 
 Forgetting the tears of the darker years, 
 
 And the curse of a bondman s blood ! 
 
 In vain you soften the voice of greed, 
 
 In vain you speak us fair; 
 The time is late, and we hark nor heed; 
 
 In gladness still we dare. 
 Yield, then, yield, to the force we wield, 
 
 To the masses of our might ; 
 We are countless strong at the throat of wrong, 
 
 The warriors of the right ! 
 
 Yes, we are the captains of the earth 
 
 And the warders of the sea 
 Of a race new born in nobler birth, 
 
 The mighty and the free! 
 We clasp all hands, to the farthest lands ; 
 
 We swear by our mother soil, 
 To take the meed who have done the deed ! 
 
 Hark to the tongues of toil ! 
 
 15
 
 FRANCISCO FERRER. 
 
 more time writes the truth in blood, 
 in reddest blood, that all may see ; 
 Once more life gives her best to death to pay 
 
 the price which sets men free. 
 Once more the silent martyr s voice speaks 
 
 louder than the thunder can, 
 And echoes round and round the world, and 
 thrills the heart of every man. 
 
 Yes, Socrates accepts again the hemlock in his 
 
 dungeon there, 
 And Jesus, crowned by Roman thorns, writhes 
 
 on his cross raised high in air. 
 Fire meets a heart more hot than fire where 
 
 Bruno s ashes crumble down, 
 And" hangman s gallows choke the breath, but 
 
 not the love, of brave John Brown. 
 
 L
 
 FRANCISCO FERRER 
 
 "Let man see clear, and that he may, let all 
 
 our children have the light !" 
 This was the message Ferrer spoke, his word 
 
 in superstitition s night. 
 Is this the thing for which you killed ; is this 
 
 the crime he did, and died; 
 Are such, are such, black deeds of wrong, to 
 
 which e en mercy is denied! 
 
 You tyrants, trembling while you slay, see 
 
 time s handwriting on the wall ; 
 Look on the words, and know they tell that 
 
 kings and all their strength shall fall. 
 Each stifled voice, it sounds your doom, each 
 
 shackelled wrist shakes all your power; 
 Each martyr drags you to the dust. There 
 
 comes the people s triumph hour. 
 
 And you, black priests, who wear love s mask, 
 
 and if men doubt you, curse, and kill, 
 Know this : although your victims bleed, their 
 
 memories are potent still. 
 Cringe at your altars; be afraid; beg heaven 
 
 for its avenging rod; 
 The time is nigh which ends your power, which 
 
 breaks you, as it breaks your god ! 
 
 17
 
 FRANCISCO FERRER 
 
 Come, little children, like the flowers; you in 
 nocents he loved to love ; 
 
 Who filled his soul with happy dreams, the 
 dreams he gave his days to prove, 
 
 Hark to his story o er and o er, while tender 
 eyes with tears are wet ; 
 
 A tribute of the love you bear, your promise 
 never to forget. 
 
 And we, the sires, the sons of men, whose 
 
 children s children yet shall live; 
 Who here would bring him worthiest praise, 
 
 and all of honor glad would give; 
 Would mark our foreheads with his blood, and 
 
 all his sacred wounds would kiss 
 May we be equal to his faith, and worthy of 
 
 the sacrifice! 
 
 They rise in myriads at his name, to do the 
 
 work his faith began ; 
 Ten thousand stand where Ferrer fell, to speed 
 
 the cause of struggling man. 
 Or live, or die in anguish keen, or madden 
 
 neath the prison stone, 
 They cease not from the battle here, till truth s 
 
 last torturer falls, o erthrown ! 
 
 18
 
 THE HANGMAN. 
 
 TPHE hangman s hands are dyed with blood, 
 
 And all they touch or hold 
 Is stained and streaked with a clotted flood, 
 
 E en to his bloody gold 
 The coins that are paid for human breath 
 
 And the lives which he has sold. 
 
 In scarlet hue stand old and new 
 His clothes, his board, his bed. 
 
 There is blood in the cup that he lifts up, 
 And crimson is his bread; 
 
 And e en his floors and walls and doors 
 Are marked with gory red. 
 
 The hangman s face is dull and grey, 
 
 And soulless are his eyes; 
 That he may live from day to day, 
 
 Some fellow-being dies. 
 The tears of the young are naught to him, 
 
 Nor age s stifled cries. 
 
 19
 
 THE HANGMAN 
 
 He does not know the sob of woe ; 
 
 Black fear he does not feel ; 
 Hardly a word from his lips is heard, 
 
 And his ears heed no appeal. 
 His cruel chin reveals within 
 
 A nature hard as steel. 
 
 The hangman s thoughts are not of love, 
 
 Nor are they yet of hate ; 
 They do not lift themselves above 
 
 The dungeon s iron grate ; 
 Their interests are the knotted rope 
 
 And the heavy gallows weight. 
 
 His mind is filled with the counted killed 
 And the hope of more to come, 
 
 And the price they fling when men must swing, 
 Which makes a goodly sum ; 
 
 For his reason waits on the law s black hates, 
 And, save for this, stands dumb. 
 
 The hangman s soul lies stiff and stark, 
 
 The hangman s heart is dead ; 
 And the need of friends is a burnt-out spark 
 
 From which the flame has fled; 
 For he is marked with murder s mark, 
 
 And with blood upon his head. 
 
 20
 
 THE HANGMAN 
 
 In times of rest he knows no guest 
 No hand will touch him, none ! 
 
 Nor woman mild nor happy child 
 Greets him when day is done; 
 
 And he walks the night, a poison blight, 
 An outcast of the sun !
 
 JOY AND LABOR. 
 
 TPHE joy of labor, and the joy of song, 
 
 Delight of pleasure, and delight of rest, 
 And happy peace, the heart s full welcome 
 
 guest, 
 All these are one, like friends in gladsome 
 
 throng. 
 Nay, toiling brain and hands with sinews 
 
 strong, 
 
 Hot sweating brows, and heavy heaving breast, 
 Tis unto work that nature yields her best; 
 Why do you, then, cry out upon a wrong? 
 
 An answer comes from countless sons of toil, 
 Borne as on mighty winds from everywhere, 
 "Yes, work were sweet, if we might glean the 
 
 soil, 
 
 And own the things we fashion with our care ; 
 But masters take our substance for their spoil : 
 We are but slaved; the curse of work lies 
 
 there!" 
 
 22
 
 TO A. M. B. 
 
 A LABOR of love you have given 
 
 Through the long stretch of the years, 
 
 And cherished and trusted and striven, 
 Nor yielded to shadowy fears, 
 But smiled when your thoughts were of 
 tears. 
 
 The gladdest when hope walked before me, 
 
 All constant when doubt dogged my feet, 
 
 My comrade when effort outwore me, 
 
 Amidst life s harsh stress and its heat, 
 How shall I your praises repeat? 
 
 Sage in your youth with your learning, 
 
 Full wise in your womanhood still, 
 Ever a prophetess, yearning 
 
 For worlds which high dreams should 
 
 fulfill, * 
 
 You have burned in your heart and your 
 will.
 
 TO A. M. B. 
 
 Spirit all staunch and heroic, 
 
 O erflowing with faith in mankind, 
 
 You have borne with the will of a stoic 
 
 The pangs which true service must find, 
 And still kept serene in your mind. 
 
 And with that high trust born of woman, 
 Her soul s most miraculous part, 
 
 That greatest of glories most human, 
 
 You have poured out the wine of your 
 
 heart, 
 And strengthened e en me for my part. 
 
 Though the years have brought sweet with 
 
 the bitter, 
 And the tares have not filled up the 
 
 sheaves, 
 
 I have thought that your days had been fitter 
 With more flowers of life mid the leaves, 
 And with less of the fate that bereaves. 
 
 Has the labor been worthy the doing? 
 
 No happier boons did you miss? 
 Is there no reason for rueing? 
 
 Have I been worthy of this? 
 
 Is it triumph, and not sacrifice?
 
 TO A. M. B. 
 
 Because naught of praise can requite you, 
 Though all splendor of praise I afford, 
 
 The fruits of my years must delight you 
 And be your sole gift and reward. 
 My harvest of song I accord. 
 
 Take this, and let all be a token 
 
 Of a love which still lasts and allures. 
 
 I give to your trust still unbroken 
 
 Each song, though it dies or endures ; 
 For myself and my songs all are yours. 
 
 Take these, with my memories tender; 
 
 Take these, with hope s star-scattered 
 beams. 
 
 Take all, with the visions of splendor 
 
 That shine from the future in gleams 
 My highest, my holiest dreams.
 
 A RHAPSODY 
 
 A RIOT of violets under the trees, 
 
 With cool curving- branches above them : 
 Wild apple blossoms and cavalier bees 
 
 To daunt them and dazzle and love them : 
 Winged clouds in the sky and the sun on the 
 
 grass ; 
 
 White birches poised over the river, 
 Which here is all smooth like a shadowing 
 
 glass, 
 
 And there is all ripples, aquiver ; 
 Soft wind making waves on the wheat as it 
 
 goes ; 
 
 A bird in a tree top, aswinging, 
 Too glad to find voice till its heart overflows 
 And floods in a torrent of singing 
 
 What wonder that two neath the spell of it all, 
 And wrought with the wine of June weather, 
 
 Must rapture at heart till they tremble in hand 
 With the passion which draws them to 
 gether ! 
 
 26
 
 A RHAPSODY 
 
 What wonder that eyes falter low and then 
 
 rise 
 
 In quest of the truth in those faces, 
 Ere they strain breast to breast, and then 
 
 shudder apart 
 
 From the sting of the sweet of embraces ! 
 What wonder that these, who wend forth to 
 
 the streams 
 
 And the hills and the green forest covers, 
 Blushing maiden and youth, should move as in 
 
 dreams, 
 Till they kiss, and know well they are lovers ! 
 
 Forget, yes, -forget all the world with its 
 
 wrongs, 
 
 Young hearts in your ecstacies splendid, 
 And suit your warm lips to the happier songs 
 
 Which sound as all sorrow were ended ! 
 There is labor enough on the steeps of the 
 
 years ; 
 
 There is time and to spare for reflection ; 
 Taste, taste of your joy ere time loosen your 
 
 tears, 
 And know one full day of perfection !
 
 A RHAPSODY 
 
 Here, while rich gifts of the summer have 
 
 birth, 
 
 Let sound the first strains of love s story. 
 Sweet dreaming world, be praised for your 
 
 worth, 
 And this, that completes all your glory !
 
 PROGRESS 
 
 VVTIDE through the unknown world, 
 
 Where moved the primal man 
 In leash of all his lusts, 
 
 His life without a plan, 
 A voice of thunder speech 
 
 Rolled forth in majesty, 
 "Lo, ye shall know the truth 
 
 And the truth shall make you free !" 
 
 And the cave man faced the beasts, 
 
 And watched the moon wax old, 
 And snatched the lightning s fires 
 
 To tame the bitter cold, 
 And turned his stumbling mind 
 
 In thorny paths of thought, 
 And touched his fellow s hand, 
 
 And knew himself, and wrought.
 
 PROGRESS 
 
 Up through the ancient night, 
 
 Dim with the wrath of gods, 
 Who bade man not to learn, 
 
 And held avenging rods, 
 Vast tones called round the earth 
 
 And o er the tidal sea, 
 "Lo, ye shall know the truth 
 
 And the truth shall make you free !" 
 
 And superstition s chains 
 
 Fell as dissolved in mist; 
 For bravest reason s dawn 
 
 The gods could not resist. 
 And all their thrones seemed fears, 
 
 And their strong wrath but dreams, 
 As each dread shadowy power 
 
 Died in the morning gleams. 
 
 Out of the break of day, 
 
 Amidst the great crowned kings, 
 Where steel-strong cohorts stood 
 
 As if with guardian wings, 
 A word thrice bold rang forth 
 
 To men on bended knee, 
 "Lo, ye shall know the truth 
 
 And the truth shall make you free !" 
 
 30
 
 And the kings shook with a doubt, 
 
 And the rulers shrank with dread, 
 Where the might of hope stood up 
 
 To strike oppression dead; 
 And all their hands forbore, 
 
 And swords were sheathed in rust, 
 Where robes and crowns at last 
 
 Lay trodden in the dust. 
 
 Here, where the day shines fair 
 
 And lights all wisdom s deeds, 
 Strength, that hath done with fear, 
 
 The beckoning future heeds, 
 Harking the potent call 
 
 From the lips of destiny, 
 "Lo, ye shall know the truth 
 
 And the truth shall make you free !" 
 
 The world s worn order goes, 
 
 And the world s fresh heart beats strong, 
 While error scare can stand 
 
 Amidst his fleeing throng. 
 And life still proudly dares, 
 
 Where, fair in fadeless youth, 
 With conquest in its eyes, 
 
 It marks its leader, Truth ! 
 
 31
 
 THE LAST DAYS OF MAMMON 
 
 SAW a people bowed down to the earth 
 
 Before its idol, shaped in shining gold ; 
 
 I heard it voice its frenzy, "Lord, behold : 
 
 Thou art indeed our God of Excellent Worth !" 
 
 Woman, with man, was there; time s latest 
 
 birth, 
 
 Strong life maturer, and the tottering old ; 
 The whole, the maimed, the fearful and the 
 
 bold- 
 Ay, all the varied denizens of Earth. 
 
 Swift in the midst a presence strode to wait, 
 
 As if to him the days of time were due ; 
 
 Then struck that golden god, and crushed it 
 
 straight, 
 
 And all the money changers overthrew, 
 Calling to wondering fear with voice of fate, 
 The old is dead ; I will make the new !"
 
 MARGARETA MARTENEZ 
 
 ruthless Diaz holds his sway 
 By grace of power and greed of gold, 
 And wields the might to save or slay, 
 And crushes all who say him nay, 
 Full often is her story told. 
 
 She stood anear the high-walled mill, 
 
 Before the barred and padlocked gate, 
 Where men and women, cowed and still, 
 Dared hardly more than breathe, until 
 The lords within should speak their fate ; 
 
 Among the starving workers, where 
 
 They saw the masters piled-up bread. 
 Weeping upon their hopeless care, 
 Hungry among the hungry there, 
 She heard them beg that they be fed. 
 
 33
 
 MARGARETA MART AN EZ 
 
 Those who, many months before, 
 
 Had left their places at the looms, 
 Dragging their feet across the floor, 
 Drooping and heavy through the door; 
 Like corpses creeping out of tombs. 
 
 The slaves, whose niggard pittance won 
 
 Through tortured hours of murderous strain, 
 Had scarce sufficed from risen sun 
 To bear them through till day was done, 
 And still renew their lives of pain. 
 
 And now they came with broken vows 
 
 To plead for tasks which they had spurned, 
 
 Begging the pittance greed allows 
 
 To such as have no heart to rouse, 
 
 But dumbly take what they have earned. 
 
 "Give us to eat," the starving cried ; 
 
 "Then will we work what way ye choose. 
 Have pity, Masters, in your pride, 
 And we will all our woes abide, 
 
 And please you hence, nor more refuse ! 
 
 34
 
 MARGARETA MARTANE7 
 
 "Give us to eat, a crust of bread ; 
 
 Famished we are and cannot work ; 
 And we will pay you when we re fed, 
 With double tasks, to eat your bread ; 
 
 With double tasks, and will not shirk!" 
 
 Thus they beseeched. But scornful ears 
 
 Were turned to catch their pleading tones. 
 
 Came back reply to sighs and tears; 
 
 Came back black words, and jests and jeers, 
 And looks of hate, to all their groans. 
 
 "Dogs! Would ye eat and will not pay? 
 
 And from whose bounty will ye eat? 
 Open your ears and hear us say : 
 Go, get your food along the way, 
 
 And munch the refuse of the street ! 
 
 "Dogs, get your food howe er ye will ! 
 
 Did ye lack water, do ye think 
 That we would for your begging spill, 
 And stand and see ye have your fill? 
 
 Ye should die thirsting for one drink !" 
 
 35
 
 MARGARETA MARTANEZ 
 
 A silence fell upon them there; 
 
 The silence of a freezing fear. 
 Their faces blanched with hopeless care; 
 Their eyes stood at a glassy stare, 
 
 Too dry with grief to drop a tear. 
 
 The fathers thought of wife and child, 
 
 And shook with inward agony; 
 Daughters stood distraught and wild ; 
 And strong sons silently reviled ; 
 
 While mothers groaned, and thought to die. 
 
 A silence fell. What maid is she 
 
 Who steps out from the faltering crowd 
 With hand upraised and manner free, 
 With look of might and majesty, 
 
 Whose voice is clear and bold and loud ? 
 
 "Brothers and sisters !" hear her cry, 
 "These would not longer that ye live, 
 
 But only laugh if ye must die. 
 
 Yea, they rejoice at groan and sigh : 
 Ask not for aid, such will not give. 
 
 36
 
 MARGARETA MARTANEZ 
 
 "They scorn your pangs; they taunt and jeer; 
 
 They bid ye starve and find no aid. 
 If ye have hearts, why stand ye here? 
 See yonder bread, so near, so near! 
 
 Go, take and eat; nor be afraid! 
 
 "They name ye dogs, mere curs that crawl, 
 Fit for the kennel or the pen; 
 
 Which do not bite, but bark and bawl ! 
 
 If ye indeed be men at all, 
 
 Tis time to prove that ye are men ! 
 
 "Hark to my word, and give good heed : 
 Early or late we all must die ; 
 
 If ye are of the human breed, 
 
 Though it should be your last brave deed, 
 Strike one good blow ! And so will I !" 
 
 They stared upon her. In her face 
 
 A look shone forth which strengthened all. 
 A shout, and in a moment s space 
 They swarmed defiant round the place, 
 
 And threw themselves against the wall.
 
 MARGARETA MARTANEZ 
 
 "Beat down those bars!" the maiden cried; 
 
 And loud the blows crashed at her word. 
 They carried beams from every side; 
 And not one hand could be denied, 
 
 So by her spirit all were stirred. 
 
 Tis Margareta, soul ablaze. 
 
 She leads them through the crumbling wall ; 
 They loot the stores ; they rend and raze. 
 Their fast endured for many days, 
 
 Like wolves upon the bread they fall. 
 
 Full swift the tyrant s soldiers came, 
 
 And shot them as they triumphed there ; 
 But through the smoke and rifle flame 
 From dying lips there rose the name 
 Of her who well had made them dare. 
 
 They bound her arms, nor shed her blood, 
 And bore her whence none knows till now ; 
 But let them do whate er they would 
 They could not match the humanhood 
 Of the high soul behind that brow. 
 
 38
 
 MARGARETA MARTANEZ 
 
 It matters not if she be dead, 
 
 Or unto awful torture hurled, 
 And worse to be, hang o er her head, 
 Since all men know the things she said, 
 
 And the words she spoke ring round the world ! 
 
 39
 
 THE REVELATION 
 
 "PHE bruised rose shall yield more sweet 
 
 Than erst it could impart; 
 And love shall fill, as is most meet, 
 A bruised heart. 
 
 Through its own woe the heart shall learn 
 
 The sorrows of the earth ; 
 Thenceforth its life with love shall burn : 
 
 It knows the worth. 
 
 40
 
 LABOR S ANSWER 
 
 * DEACE, peace," when there is no peace ; 
 
 When Mammon sits enthroned, 
 And he who tells of a world for all 
 
 Is driven forth and stoned. 
 For there s little of calm or friendship s balm, 
 
 Or joy of a kindly deed, 
 Where man is sold for a price of gold 
 
 And bound in the chains of greed! 
 
 "Peace, peace," when there is no peace ; 
 When the battle for work means life, 
 And men must tear at each other s throats 
 
 By the law of the club and knife. 
 For they gather slight yield of the forge and 
 
 field, 
 
 Or spoil of the mine and mill, 
 And the pittance of each but helps to teach 
 The fear of his brother still! 
 
 41
 
 LABOR S ANSWER 
 
 "Peace, peace," when there is no peace ; 
 
 When the millions shout, "How long?" 
 And the armies rise at the masters will 
 
 To keep their kingdom strong. 
 For the rifles flash, and the Maxims crash, 
 
 And the gleaming swords descend ; 
 And woe they bear to the hearts that dare 
 
 Their birthrights to defend ! 
 
 "Peace, peace," when there is no peace ; 
 
 When the peoples drink salt tears, 
 And feed on their hearts, that throb with woe 
 
 And break with the cruel years. 
 For the children cry, and their mothers die, 
 
 And the fathers droop with care, 
 And curse each day in a dumb dismay 
 
 Till the night comes with despair ! 
 
 "Peace, peace," when there is no peace; 
 
 When the whole world reeks with war. 
 By the soul of man that awakes at last, 
 
 What peace do you clamor for! 
 Comes a noble fight ; tis a fight for right : 
 
 We are ready to our last breath! 
 There shall be no peace till our wrongs may 
 
 cease, 
 Though we battle to the death !
 
 HOPE AND EFFORT 
 
 I-I OPE is of the valley ; effort stands 
 
 Upon the mountain-top, facing the sun. 
 Hope dreams of dreams made true, and great 
 
 deeds done; 
 
 Effort goes forth with toiling feet and hands 
 To attain the far off sky-touched table lands 
 Of great desire ; and till the end is won 
 Looks not below, where the long strife, begun 
 In pleasant fields, met torrents, rocks, and sands. 
 
 Hope ; but when hope bids look within her glass, 
 And shows the wondrous things which may befall, 
 Wait not for destiny, wait not at all, 
 Nor sink in hesitation s deep morass: 
 Sound thou to all thy powers a trumpet call, 
 And staff in hand strive up the mountain pass. 
 
 43
 
 THE MADNESS OF GOLD 
 
 QOLD! Gold! Gold! 
 
 To touch it, to behold ; 
 To hear it rung and to see it rolled; 
 To count, to pile, to clasp, to grasp, to hold 
 Gold; 
 Manifold gold! 
 
 Gold! 
 
 New, or centuries old ; 
 
 Poured out from every mine s dark fold, 
 
 Or doled, 
 
 Gold-piece-by-piece-of-gold, 
 
 From hands unable to withhold 
 
 Their hoards of gold ! 
 
 Let earth not be told 
 
 Of her hidden glittering gold ; 
 
 But far beneath her stubborn outer mold, 
 
 Neath toughest rock, let toil be long and bold 
 
 To make her heart unfold its plenteous gold. 
 
 Then let it melt, and mold, 
 
 Ingot by ingot, and bright bar by bar of gold, 
 
 And then be coined, and spread and shoaled, 
 
 To lie and shine, nor ever more be sold! 
 
 44
 
 THE MADNESS OF GOLD 
 
 Gold! 
 
 Let men give gold, 
 
 Pure gold ; 
 
 Nor hold it in their hungry hold. 
 
 Let them be timid-souled, 
 
 While law, and lash, and prison bars uphold 
 
 The power to make them bend, controlled, 
 
 Acknowledging the might of Monarch Gold ! 
 
 Let all be bought and sold: 
 
 And mind and heart be both enrolled, 
 
 Though blood run streams and death be stark 
 
 and cold 
 To gain all golden gold! 
 
 Gold! 
 
 Perfect gold ! 
 
 Be it in psalm and worship wide extolled. 
 Let it have priests, all golden robed and stoled; 
 Vicars of The Church Of Gold. 
 Let its might be told 
 
 To the wondering young and to the praying old. 
 Gold! Gold! Gold! 
 Let it be throned and aureoled 
 Neath some great dome in rock-bound jeweled 
 hold,
 
 THE MADNESS OF GOLD 
 
 Till time s last knell is knolled, 
 
 While o er the thrice-barred gates its fame is 
 
 scrolled 
 
 "Behold! 
 
 With power and majesty for aye untold, 
 
 Earth s One God Gold!"
 
 THE END OF WOOD CUTTING 
 
 leaf and yellow leaf 
 Are flaunting through the air; 
 The paths are rustling underfoot, 
 
 The sun is everywhere. 
 Bright creepers clasp the rugged wood 
 
 Of many a hardy tree; 
 The squirrel stores his winter nuts 
 
 And chatters in his glee. 
 The ripened year is done at last; 
 
 The fuel is at home. 
 One song for joyous seasons past 
 And happy days to come, 
 
 My friends, 
 And happy days to come ! 
 
 Come build a fire upon the ground, 
 And let the wine flow free; 
 
 Make smooth a place where we may sit 
 And raise our revelry. 
 
 The sun will hasten to the west, 
 But we have naught to care: 
 
 47
 
 THE END OF WOOD CUTTING 
 
 With meat and drink we need no more, 
 
 Save that the night be fair. 
 Beach wood and chestnut wood; 
 
 Make a cheerful blaze. 
 Forget the bad and praise the good. 
 
 Here s joy and many days, 
 My friends, 
 
 Here s joy and many days !
 
 A VISION 
 
 IN DREAMS I saw the world s old sorrow 
 
 fade, 
 
 A cloud of error lifted from man s soul : 
 The golden idol crashed in dust; the whole 
 Of pride and envy, hate and fear obeyed 
 A world-wide will and vanished. Unafraid, 
 Man clasped his brother, in the sweet control 
 Of Love, who, leading from the gates of dole, 
 Had given him new sight and perfect aid. 
 
 I saw great hosts marshalled on many a plain, 
 Their banners marked with "Love hath vic 
 tory !" 
 Sweet anthems pierced the skies in glorious 
 
 strain 
 
 And echoed on and on most rapturously. 
 The wonder woke me. With the vision s wane 
 A voice spake to my ear, "This yet shall be." 
 
 49
 
 i.OVKAND HATE 
 
 I OVE met with Hate within the porch of 
 
 time, 
 As both went forth to traverse every clime. 
 
 They parted at the parting of the ways ; 
 Love bade farewell, nor knew Hate s baleful 
 gaze. 
 
 And Love was glad of sunlight and moonlight, 
 But Hate loved only darkness in the night. 
 
 Love stood entranced while sang th enrap 
 tured birds; 
 
 Hate stopped his ears, and murmured bitter 
 words. 
 
 Love worshipped where the flowers were fair 
 
 to see; 
 Hate turned away and sought some misery. 
 
 Love laughed when rain fell on the fair, green 
 
 earth, 
 But Hate within his heart wished for a dearth. 
 
 50
 
 LOVE AND HATE 
 
 Love lingered where the fields would yield in 
 crease ; 
 
 Hate hoped for blight, that harvest joys might 
 cease. 
 
 Love came at last and saw himself in men, 
 And made no sound, for joy; nor wandered 
 then; 
 
 Hate later came; and looking, mad with rage, 
 Made himself known, and would in war en 
 gage; 
 
 Love gazed upon him, and he fled away, 
 As flees the night before the face of day; 
 
 And lived in ambush; making bitterness, 
 Envy and scorn, and woe, and all distress. 
 
 But Love, because of his pure soul, was glad 
 In all the myriad blessings that time had; 
 
 And so drew in new life with every breath; 
 But Hate drank his own poison till his death. 
 
 51
 
 THE MEETING OF THE WINDS 
 
 HFHE Northwind met with the Southwind 
 
 On the wide ways of the sky, 
 And the air turned frost as the clouds were 
 
 tossed 
 
 To in confusion lie; 
 For the Northwind raged at the Southwind 
 
 To buffet her where she flew, 
 But the Southwind smiled like one beguiled 
 As her flower-sweet breath she blew. 
 
 The Northwind turned to the Southwind, 
 
 And saw her that she was fair; 
 With laugh of delight, with eyes of night, 
 
 And back-blown, sun-bronzed hair. 
 And the Southwind knew him, the Northwind, 
 
 And saw him that he was strong; 
 With face to command, and a mighty hand 
 
 To whip his gusts along.
 
 THE MEETING OF THE WINDS 
 
 The Southwind sang to the Northwind, 
 
 "I am warmer than love, or fire, 
 And I know thy goal is the Southern Pole, 
 
 But thou art my heart s desire"; 
 And the Northwind answered the Southwind, 
 
 "Wanderer, wait with me then : 
 Thy singing is sweet; tis well that we meet: 
 
 Make me thy music again." 
 
 The Southwind kissed to the Northwind, 
 
 And the Northwind clasped her hands; 
 While the wrath was hushed of the gales that 
 rushed 
 
 Full wild o er the seas and lands. 
 And there, twixt the earth and heavens, 
 
 At twilight or at morn, 
 Midst waftings from flowers in far-off bowers, 
 
 The delicate Spring was born. 
 
 53
 
 TWO POWERS 
 
 *T*HE power of wrong 
 
 Is iron strong; 
 Is the power of right, then, weak? 
 
 The power of right 
 
 Is a greater might 
 Than thou can st think or speak. 
 
 Each claims the world. 
 
 Right s word is hurled 
 That it bears fear of none ; 
 
 But wrong foregoes 
 
 War, till it knows 
 Some foul advantage won. 
 
 Where er they clash, 
 
 And great blows crash, 
 Wrong, fearful, counts each friend; 
 
 Let friends be few, 
 
 Let none be true, 
 Right battles till the end !
 
 TWO POWERS 
 
 They struggle still 
 Through well and ill; 
 
 Wrong tricks its every blow. 
 With brave sword hand 
 Right still would stand 
 
 In fair fight with its foe. 
 
 Through time s full length 
 
 Wrong guards its strength 
 As if it feared its fate ; 
 
 Right risks its all, 
 
 To stand or fall, 
 With patience which can wait. 
 
 Once wounded sore, 
 
 Wrong strives no more, 
 But trembling with its smart, 
 
 Flees from disdain, 
 
 To staunch its pain, 
 And hide its coward heart. 
 
 On every field 
 
 Where it must yield, 
 Right fears no mortal thrust, 
 
 But rises there 
 
 Still strong to dare, 
 Though struck down to the dust ! 
 
 55
 
 TWO POWERS 
 
 Wrong s falsest power 
 
 Fails hour by hour, 
 And ever stands at bay ; 
 
 But the heart of right 
 
 It thirsts for fight, 
 Grown stronger every day. 
 
 Till one by one 
 
 Lies flee the sun, 
 And the war-worn years are sped, 
 
 And the last bold deed 
 
 Is right s good meed, 
 And wrong sinks, stricken dead. 
 
 The power of wrong 
 
 Is strong, thrice strong, 
 And the fearful cringe and cry ; 
 
 But a blow shall fall 
 
 To end it all, 
 Ere the years of man go by! 
 
 56
 
 THE DEAD FINANCIER 
 
 I IAR by half truths which thou hast said, 
 
 Trickster by hid snares that thou hast 
 
 spun, 
 
 Thief by treasures vast which thou hast won, 
 Hypocrite by the mouths that thou hast fed, 
 Tyrant by the cause which thou hast led, 
 Murderer by the wars thou hast begun, 
 Monster by all deeds which thou hast done, 
 Thou later Nero, thou art foiled and dead ! 
 
 Now may the horde of gold men stare, and see 
 The due reward that falls to monstrous lust: 
 While still the peoples struggle to be free, 
 Though hired swords in streams of blood should 
 
 rust, 
 
 Contempt at last shall come to all like thee, 
 Whom death hath choked and flung into the dust ! 
 
 57
 
 A JUDGMENT 
 
 * * l-i E lives before his day !" the carpers cry : 
 
 "The man would outstrip even time and 
 
 fate !" 
 
 Who waits for warring years to pass him by, 
 And lets right stand or fall, has lived too late !" 
 
 58
 
 THE CHILDREN OF THE LOOMS 
 
 /~\H, what are these that plod the road 
 
 At dawn s first hour and evening s chime, 
 Each back bent as beneath a load ; 
 
 Each sallow face afoul with grime? 
 Nay, what are these whose little feet 
 
 Scarce bear them on to toil or bed! 
 Do hearts within their bosoms beat? 
 
 Surely, twere better they were dead. 
 
 Babes are they, doomed to cruel dooms, 
 
 Who labor all the livelong day; 
 Who stand beside the roaring looms 
 
 Nor ever turn their eyes away ; 
 Like parts of those machines of steel : 
 
 Like wheels that whirl, like shuttles thrown ; 
 Without the power to dream or feel ; 
 
 With all of childishness unknown. 
 
 59
 
 THE CHILDREN OF THE LOOMS 
 
 Brothers and sisters of the flowers, 
 
 Fit playmates of the bird and bee, 
 For you grow soft the springtime hours ; 
 
 For you the shade lies neath the tree. 
 For you life smiles the whole day long; 
 
 For you she breathes each breath in bliss, 
 And turns all sound into a song ; 
 
 And you, and you are come to this ! 
 
 Is t not enough that man should toil 
 
 To fill the hands that clutch for gold ? 
 Is t not enough that women moil, 
 
 And in life s summer time grow old? 
 Is t not enough that death should pale 
 
 To see men welcome him as rest; 
 But must the children drudge and fail, 
 
 And perish on the mother s breast? 
 
 See, lovers, wed at tender eve ; 
 
 See, mothers, with your new-born young; 
 See, fathers if ye can, believe; 
 
 From infant blood, lo, wealth is wrung! 
 See homes ; see towns ; see cities ; states ; 
 
 Earth, show it to the skies above ! 
 Lovers who pass through rapture s gates, 
 
 Are these, are these your fruits of love ? 
 
 60
 
 THE CHILDREN OF THE LOOMS 
 
 O man, who boast your lands subdued, 
 
 Your conquered air, your oceans tamed, 
 Who mold all nature to your mood, 
 
 Look on these babes and be ashamed! 
 Dull looks from out each weary face, 
 
 Cold words upon each little tongue, 
 Dead lives that know not childhood s grace, 
 
 Grown old before they can be young. 
 
 Hear, world of Mammon, brutal, bold, 
 
 Gorging with life the maw of greed, 
 Measuring everything by gold: 
 
 The good deed with the evil deed 
 The pangs of suffering childhood s care, 
 
 Now coined in coins to fill a purse, 
 These things shall haunt you everywhere, 
 
 And rest upon you for a curse! 
 
 61
 
 SLOW, SLOW 
 
 CLOW, slow, the long hours go; 
 
 Slow comes the day; 
 But hard, hard, the strength must strain 
 
 That drives the night away. 
 Slow, slow, the rivers flow; 
 
 Slow swells the tree; 
 But strong, strong, with pressing urge, 
 
 Their force strives on to be. 
 
 Slow, slow, the great airs blow; 
 
 Slow comes the wind; 
 But long, long, the powers must toil 
 
 Which follow close behind. 
 Slow, slow, and to and fro, 
 
 Move all the oceans wide, 
 But vast, vast, must be the stress 
 
 That dwells within the tide.
 
 SLOW, SLOW 
 
 Slow, slow, doth wisdom grow ; 
 
 Slow comes the right; 
 But staunch, staunch, must effort stand 
 
 To move things with its might. 
 Slow, slow, our life we know: 
 
 Slow comes brotherhood; 
 But brave, brave be human hearts 
 
 To win the world for good. 
 
 63
 
 THE NEWER HEMLOCK 
 
 do not now, as once to Socrates, 
 Proffer the hemlock s draught, the grave s 
 cold bed, 
 
 To such as shame the time, whose lips have 
 said 
 
 The hard, cold truths that shake the world s 
 dull ease; 
 
 Nay, they know craftier means to silence these ; 
 
 For truth will live though truth s friend s 
 are struck dead ; 
 
 And weaken not, but wax in strength, in 
 stead 
 
 Another drink they give, with other lees. 
 
 Some strong man wars with power; they offer 
 
 place; 
 Or spurns the lusts of wealth ; they pour him 
 
 gold. 
 
 These teach him to avert, or steel his face, 
 Amidst the marts where all is bought and sold, 
 Until, inured to baseness, he grows base, 
 And scorns what he had died for, glad, of old ! 
 
 64
 
 1793 
 
 /MORNING breaks there in the east; 
 
 The stars pale in the sky. 
 And we shall see a marriage feast 
 
 Before the sun comes nigh. 
 The guests e en now are on their way; 
 
 Those voices which I hear 
 
 Are joyous all. Make holiday, 
 
 My friends, I lend an ear! 
 
 Yes, time has come when I must wed; 
 
 The barber told last night 
 Of how the service would be said 
 
 Twixt dawn and candle light. 
 The priest will all his vestments wear; 
 
 And I, with hands behind, 
 Shall bow and kiss the maiden there 
 
 Who s wholly to my mind. 
 
 65
 
 THE GUILLOTINE 
 
 They gather round the altar now 
 
 Outside the barred gates. 
 Great store of choicest gifts they show 
 
 For him who harks and waits. 
 Yes, sing! This is my marriage morn, 
 
 And song should usher in 
 That day, a bridegroom, cleanly shorn, 
 
 His willing bride shall win. 
 
 Scarce thirty years of life are mine, 
 
 But I am amply wise; 
 I know the water from the wine, 
 
 And the spirit from the eyes. 
 And I am glad the hour is here 
 
 When I must know the rest 
 With naught to learn there s naught to fear 
 
 The end be happiest! 
 
 Scarce thirty years, and I have learned 
 
 Man s strange, unstable heart; 
 Whom once he loved full oft is spurned 
 
 From all the world apart. 
 Whom once man loved, at last may gain 
 
 As payment for his strife, 
 Bars and thick walls to hide his pain, 
 
 Or kiss of keenest knife. 
 
 66
 
 THE GUILLOTINE 
 
 How fair my Love is, tall and fair ; 
 
 And calm in every hour ! 
 She s standing like a lily where, 
 
 Within her secret bower, 
 She s made all ready for my kiss 
 
 By faithful hands and kind. 
 In truth, the thought of it is bliss ; 
 
 A rapture of the mind ! 
 
 Good Jailor, help me here to dress. 
 
 My coat is streaked with mud; 
 This knitted kerchief, I confess, 
 
 Was dipped in royal blood ! 
 Give now my cap of liberty; 
 
 At last my garb is well. 
 Tis in your hand, the second key; 
 
 Unlock, unlock my cell ! 
 
 My bride has left her tiring place; 
 
 Hark, how the people shout ! 
 The swaying crowd would see her face; 
 
 It is a joyous rout. 
 Again now, "Vive la Guillotine!" 
 
 How sweetly sounds her name. 
 W T ho weds with her is proud, I ween; 
 
 He weds a noble dame ! 
 
 67
 
 THE GUILLOTINE 
 
 Do I regret when death is nigh 
 
 The service which I brought? 
 Now, that the hour has come to die, 
 
 Was all too dearly bought? 
 Mankind, my brothers, I forgive; 
 
 And time shall pardon me. 
 A wiser race sometime shall live, 
 
 When the peoples can be free. 
 
 She comes down from the cart at last, 
 
 With him who does the deed. 
 The time is nigh, the past is past; 
 
 Well may all measures speed ! 
 She takes her place where men can look 
 
 And greet us when tis done, 
 And say, "How well his kiss she took; 
 
 None fairer neath the sun !" 
 
 My bride awaits me ! Hist ! A sound 
 
 Far down the corridor! 
 That heavy tread upon the ground ; 
 
 Ten guards have I, or more! 
 You honor, me, good fellows all ; 
 
 Five on each side, quite dumb. 
 The bell rings on the prison wall 
 
 I come, Sweet Love, I come ! 
 
 68
 
 FAILURE 
 
 , then, hath failed? That one who tries 
 To reach life far above his eyes; 
 Who longs to do the worthiest things, 
 And gainst all difficulties flings 
 The power and strength that make a man ; 
 That one who would complete what faith began, 
 But, climbing on, o ercoming all, 
 Bursts his strong heart, and reels, to fall 
 Before some last vast summit still unsealed ? 
 He hath not failed ! 
 
 There is a triumph in defeat; 
 And noble sorrow s tears are sweet. 
 The high heart raptures, though it break 
 In stress of agony s fierce ache. 
 Yes, when all strength, all will is spent 
 In strife where truth and honor both are blent, 
 The sense of worth, the thought that all 
 Was risked for good, to stand or fall 
 These things turn blackest ruin that may be, 
 To victory! 
 
 69
 
 FAILURE 
 
 Who, then, hath failed? Tis he whose deeds 
 Scorn truth and right; who hears nor heeds 
 Our fear, our faith, or wrath, or love. 
 Whose iron ambition strives above 
 All measures of all good and ill ; 
 A frenzied ego with a poisoned will ; 
 Who gains his joy, his life, his light 
 In triumphs of a monstrous might ! 
 Though neath a world-wide power his shame be 
 veiled, 
 
 He, he, hath failed ! 
 
 70
 
 THE DEATH OF A TOILER 
 
 IT was the morning that she died. For weeks, 
 
 in sorrow, 
 
 We watched beside her broken life, fearing each 
 morrow. 
 
 The white plague s brand had struck the mark, 
 
 and on her features 
 Had set the seal that harshly pales the fairest 
 
 creatures. 
 
 And now we knew that she must go ; her breast s 
 
 faint moving 
 Told us she was beyond all help, all save our 
 
 loving. 
 
 A smile was on her open lips, and she was sleep 
 ing; 
 
 Our hearts with vain regrets were torn, and we 
 were weeping; 
 
 71
 
 THE DEATH OF A TOILER 
 
 But as we raised our eyes and saw her face ex 
 pressing 
 
 The calm of coming death, we rose, our tears 
 repressing, 
 
 And learned how death could come most like a 
 
 friend, relieving; 
 Not as in horrid guise, relentless and bereaving. 
 
 She woke, and turned to us an eye so lit with 
 gladness 
 
 That we forgot that grief could be, or even sad 
 ness; 
 
 And listened, as in broken speech she told how 
 sweetly 
 
 The touch of peace lay on her life, resigned com 
 pletely. 
 
 "The work, the wearying work, is done, at last is 
 
 ended : 
 There are no new things to be made nor old 
 
 ones mended;
 
 THE DEATH OF A TOILER 
 
 i 
 
 "The rush, the crowd, the heat, the roar of 
 
 wheels is over, 
 And I can feel above my head the blowing clover. 
 
 "How sweet to fold my worn-out hands and lie 
 in quiet, 
 
 Far from the factory s stunning whirl and strain 
 ing riot. 
 
 "For ah, I m lying in Death s arms, and while 
 
 I m lying 
 I hear him whisper: You shall rest; for this is 
 
 dying. 
 
 "Dear rest, dear surcease; only calm, and that 
 
 forever, 
 I long for now, a dreamless sleep that endeth 
 
 never. 
 
 "All pain is gone; and now it seems, while life 
 
 is ceasing, 
 That what is best is mine at last, with death in 
 
 creasing." 
 
 73
 
 THE DEATH OF A TOILER 
 
 And soon she could not longer speak; but lay, 
 
 still smiling; 
 Our hearts and thoughts from what had been, 
 
 and was, beguiling; 
 
 Still smiling, and with eyes fixed on us still, ap 
 pealing 
 
 For soft compassion on the longing she was 
 feeling ; 
 
 Until, with one soft sigh and one last smile, she 
 parted 
 
 From us, who but an hour before were broken 
 hearted. 
 
 We closed her eyes, and did not weep, for she 
 
 had taken 
 A sweet nepenthe for her pain, and would not 
 
 waken. 
 
 74
 
 NO BONDAGE FOR ME 
 
 CHAINS are not other than chains, 
 
 Though fashioned of gold, I cry; 
 Nor is liberty less than a boon, 
 
 Though I have but a cup and a crust. 
 Better a bed in the fields, 
 
 And a man s heart, at dawn in the sky, 
 Than a luxury great as a king s, 
 
 Where a voice ever utters "Thou must!" 
 
 75
 
 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT 
 
 IN chains the heart of beauteous woman lay, 
 Subdued to man, and robbed of half its 
 
 power ; 
 Love, that should spring up sweetly like a 
 
 flower, 
 
 Aborted lived, midst blasting and decay. 
 Whose life broke free, she perished in dismay; 
 Who spoke of freedom soon must sadly cower, 
 Seeing the brow of her taskmaster lour, 
 His hand upraised to smite her or to slay. 
 
 Among those lives abject, one, brave, arose 
 And cried, "Behold ! this shall not always be : 
 Woman, arise ; only the bold are free !" 
 Nor insults, heavier bonds, nor bitter blows 
 Availed to still her, where, midst daunted foes, 
 She stood with voice that called futurity. 
 
 76
 
 SACRAMENT 
 
 IN the early August hours, 
 
 Where the poor and humble pine, 
 Tenderly she touched the leaves 
 
 On a morning-glory vine. 
 Soft she wet the thirsty blooms 
 
 That struggled with the parching heat, 
 And o er the crumbling window ledge 
 
 Bent and kissed them for their sweet. 
 
 Nigh on noon, where mills clashed loucf, 
 
 Slowly draining human veins, 
 Broodingly she dried the tears 
 
 Of childhood wound in labor s chains. 
 She stroked the lean, sob-shaken hands, 
 
 Laved and cooled the little cheek, 
 And mother-like, with pillowed breast, 
 
 Gave her heart to help the weak.
 
 SACRAMENT 
 
 With the ending of that day, 
 
 Home from all the toiling throng, 
 Near to night s brief hours of rest, 
 
 Low she sang a comrade song. 
 Sang its glad words o er and o er, 
 
 Musing midst her cares and fears, 
 And while her voice ebbed to a sigh, 
 
 Consecrated faith with tears. 
 
 All the joy she had of flowers, 
 
 All her childward watchfulness, 
 All her trust in times to come, 
 
 Seemed to merge, a power to bless. 
 Such, who thrill to all fair things, 
 
 Such, whose arms as shelters be, 
 Such, whose faith outlives hard fate, 
 
 Such will help us to be free. 
 
 78
 
 MUSIC 
 
 jyiUSIC, the language of the soul, 
 Which words can never teach : 
 A miracle of sound, that gives 
 The unutterable to speech. 
 
 79
 
 ARDORS 
 
 HpHE sea s voice as it challenges the shore 
 The shore s voice as it echoes back the sea- 
 A cry sent up where awful power must be, 
 And then a long, reverberate, answering roar. 
 Attack upon resistance o er and o er: 
 These titans aye contend for mastery; 
 And, as I hark, I think for you and me, 
 My comrades, strife until our heads are hoar. 
 
 But, though powers front us like the waves, 
 
 nor rest 
 
 Nor hush themselves a moment, like the land 
 That fails not though it conquers not, we stand, 
 Fearless, and scorning e en the mightiest; 
 Waving, where men can see, a token hand 
 That shows the heart still stanch within its 
 
 breast. 
 
 80
 
 THE THIEF OF TIME 
 
 has not had his noble dreams 
 Of strong and fair endeavor? 
 Who has not cherished gracious schemes 
 And planned high triumphs ever? 
 
 Who has not oft in youth, and still 
 Through manhood s ample stages, 
 
 Felt all his untried heart and will 
 Aroused by noble rages? 
 
 Some great ideal shakes the hand, 
 And lights the soul with beauty, 
 
 Bidding us take a lofty stand, 
 And make its care our duty. 
 
 But there s a voice, a tongue of fate, 
 Which halts us in our striving, 
 
 And warns "Beware! A task too great: 
 Your purpose is not thriving." 
 
 81
 
 THE THIEF OF TIME 
 
 Or sounds, prolific in excuse, 
 Still pleading for postponement; 
 
 And justifies each day s abuse 
 By promising atonement. 
 
 When we would face our tasks, it tells, 
 "Your time will come tomorrow." 
 
 And when we doubt our strength, it knells, 
 "Man cannot work in sorrow." 
 
 Condemning all the means that are, 
 For those in distance nearing , 
 
 It holds us from attainment far, 
 While power is disappearing. 
 
 And so youth flies and manhood flies, 
 And worth has shown no token, 
 
 Till life in retrospection lies, 
 And we are grey and broken. 
 
 82
 
 ON AN INFANT BURIED IN WINTER 
 
 HPHE flowers which in their buds must die, 
 They droop ere blossom time goes by. 
 The tender turf, it spreads their biers ; 
 The rainbow clouds drop gentle tears; 
 While with soft sorrows of the spring 
 The younger winds their dirges sing. 
 At end they find a covering pall 
 Neath rose leaves, that upon them fall. 
 
 This life which in the bud lies dead, 
 
 This smiling babe whose breath has sped, 
 
 Why must it to earth s bosom go, 
 
 Midst freezing winds and driving snow? 
 
 Its life s soft springtime but begun 
 
 Neath brightest beams of love s warm sun, 
 
 It should have ended its brief hours 
 
 In halcyon days of opening flowers. 
 
 83
 
 MAN S FRIEND 
 
 dares to leave the life of private 
 ends, 
 And on himself the world s great burden 
 
 take, 
 
 Who tramples selfishness, and turns to make 
 All men his friends, 
 
 In the large service of the common weal, 
 Virtues he needs of high and noble name ; 
 He should possess such scorn of praise and 
 fame 
 
 As martyrs feel ; 
 
 He should have faith too great for doubt to harm, 
 Patience all untouched through passing years, 
 And wisdom that makes jest of doubts and 
 fears, 
 
 Unmoved and calm.
 
 MAN S FRIEND 
 
 If he have these, and love, no fate can come 
 To make his work as though it had not been ; 
 It serveth much, though Death should step be 
 tween 
 
 And strike him dumb; 
 
 Or he be fall n, and none know where he fell, 
 Crushed by the power that he would fain have 
 
 served. 
 
 E en out of silence he speaks who hath not 
 swerved ; 
 
 His work is well! 
 
 85
 
 TO A ROBIN 
 
 ^ELODIOUS bird upon the bough, 
 
 Tell me the secret of thy glee; 
 
 With tears at heart and clouded brow, 
 
 I linger, listening to thee. 
 I pause, bewildered at thy soul, 
 
 Which pours itself in strains so high 
 Upon this world of doom and dole ; 
 
 Where sorrows live and raptures die. 
 
 Thy pleasures, too, are mixed with pain ; 
 
 I have my griefs, and thou hast thine. 
 Thou sufferest from the wind and rain ; 
 
 In famine thou full oft dost pine. 
 Thy nested young, perhaps, are dead, 
 
 Or thy blue eggs were stolen away ; 
 But still thou liftest up thine head 
 
 To carol to each dawning day. 
 
 86
 
 TO A ROBIN 
 
 Hast thou a strength that I must miss : 
 
 Or inner light which knows no dark? 
 Dost thou command some purer bliss 
 
 Which naught adverse has might to mark. 
 That thou art aye, as now, serene, 
 
 Despite whatever fates may fall? 
 Hast thou some good in all things seen, 
 
 And sweetly singest each and all ? 
 
 Or art thou of the vagrant glad, 
 
 Who rarely feel the touch of fear; 
 Too blithe within to e er be sad, 
 
 Or hold a vanished joy too dear? 
 Say, dost thou quick forget thy woe, 
 
 And lightly lilt o er thought s emprise? 
 Seems it true wisdom not to know, 
 
 And fatuous folly to be wise? 
 
 Thou answerest not, but still dost sing 
 
 As though thy heart would burst with joy. 
 Whate er thou art, glad, winged thing, 
 
 Grief cannot hurt thee or destroy. 
 I harkening stand, and sobs repress, 
 
 Where hope is brief and life is long, 
 To wonder o er thy lightsomeness 
 
 And envy thee that happier song ! 
 
 87
 
 LOOKING ON THE SIERRAS 
 
 pTERNAL winter lives on that far height ; 
 
 Immortal summer fills this vale below; 
 But those vast peaks of pure, unstained snow 
 Look down where lush flowers bloom and birds 
 
 delight, 
 And rich fruits ripen sweet through summer s 
 
 might, 
 
 Their solemn presence harmonizing so, 
 With these in gracious contrast. 
 
 Gaze ; and know 
 
 That man is ever noblest in man s sight 
 When, midst those acts familiar, fair, and good, 
 The flowers of fellowship shown day by day, 
 He still maintains his strength, his hardihood 
 Of life, and keeps his individual way 
 Austerely; through the grandeur of his blood 
 Scorning to basely rule, or to obey. 
 
 88
 
 THE GIRL OF THE ROSE. 
 
 I IKE a rose you are with that rose in your 
 
 hand; 
 
 With that rich red rose in your hair. 
 And that rose of love in your heart, dear 
 
 Heart- 
 Speak; may I gather it there? 
 
 Wet let it be with the dew of love s tears ; 
 
 Holding no worm of guile; 
 And, giving it odor sweet, my Sweet, 
 
 Make it mine with a smile! 
 
 89
 
 HYMN OF LABOR 
 
 world was made with labor : 
 Strong fusing air and fire 
 Strove before the years had birth, 
 
 With awful deed and dire, 
 And wrought from primal chaos 
 
 Amidst the ancient night, 
 The seas and shores which are the earth, 
 And shapes of morning light. 
 
 Yea, bound in frenzied orbits, 
 
 The solar substance sped 
 With travail of the moons and stars, 
 
 And planets live and dead; 
 And wombed and birthed in anguish, 
 
 As heirs of all its toil, 
 Earth s vale and hill and ribs of rock, 
 
 And the rivers in her soil 
 
 90
 
 HYMN OF LABOR 
 
 Life was formed by labor: 
 
 From out the bubbling ooze, 
 By cosmic ferment molded well, 
 
 And tropic suns and dews, 
 With stress of chemic struggle 
 
 Were built with warding care 
 The potent powers of earth and sea, 
 
 And the wings of all the air. 
 
 Yea, through the mystic process 
 
 Of crystallizing form, 
 To green growths sprung across the land, 
 
 And bloods of cold and warm, 
 The vital stream of being 
 
 In flooding effort swirled, 
 And beast and bird and swimming fish 
 
 Made animate the world. 
 
 Man was wrought by labor: 
 
 Fierce things of growth and might, 
 Where warring species held their sway, 
 
 Keen-eared and clear of sight, 
 Toiled in craft and cunning 
 
 And strength of ripening brain, 
 Till rose the form that grasped the world 
 
 And made it his domain. 
 
 91
 
 HYMN OF LABOR 
 
 Yea, with red feud and ravage 
 
 Of saber tooth and claw, 
 With banding of the pack for might 
 
 And filled or starving maw; 
 From floundering saurian s welter, 
 
 Through grin and screech of ape, 
 Struggled the deathless seed of life 
 
 Up to a human shape. 
 
 And man hath made with labor : 
 
 From his wild primal hour, 
 Potent in transforming deeds, 
 
 He hath wed will to power; 
 Through war and peace untiring, 
 
 To industry and art, 
 Spending the might of all his thought 
 
 And the hope of all his heart. 
 
 Yea, tried in stress of effort 
 
 And passions wise and vain, 
 His zeal hath gathered wisdom s seed 
 
 From fruits of joy and pain. 
 His millioned cities echo; 
 
 His ships have pathed the sea; 
 And with bent brows he toils to make 
 
 The world that yet will be. 
 
 92
 
 TO THE MASTERS 
 
 drive your beasts of burden forth to 
 
 drink? 
 
 You herd your oxen, each one to his stall? 
 You whip and goad until they heed your call? 
 You own, and use? Are these your cattle? 
 
 Think ! 
 Although the while they cringe to you and 
 
 shrink, 
 
 And watch their fate in your least finger-fall, 
 Mistake not, lest they rise and ravage all, 
 And your vast piled-up power to chaos sink ! 
 
 The earthquake gives slight time to ward its 
 
 shock ; 
 But racks the earth, nor warns of where or 
 
 when; 
 
 The hurricane, that makes the city rock, 
 Speaks not with previous voice unto your ken; 
 Vesuvius and JEtna. horror mock, 
 And tidal waves. Think : these you crush are 
 
 Men! 
 
 93
 
 THE ROISTERING KNIGHTS 
 
 VWE VE won the castle, Knights at Arms; 
 
 They who were here have fled ; 
 And Fate, that keepeth us from harms, 
 
 Hath made it ours instead. 
 But hie not to tell Court and King, 
 
 Who dream our battle s clang; 
 Let us rejoice and feast and sing, 
 
 And King and Court may hang; 
 May hang; 
 
 And King and Court may hang! 
 
 Now bring wine flagons to the board, 
 
 And serve good meat around. 
 Each weary knight unbelt his sword 
 
 And cast it on the ground. 
 You, young Esquire, roar out a song; 
 
 And let the sweet lute twang; 
 We ll rest ourselves, or right or wrong; 
 
 And King and Court may hang; 
 May hang; 
 
 And King and Court may hang! 
 
 94
 
 THE ROISTERING KNIGHTS 
 
 Much have we done for Court and King; 
 
 What give they in return? 
 Our lives these deem a little thing 
 
 While they new pleasures learn. 
 Oft did they dance and sing and quaff 
 
 When far our battle rang; 
 Let us win pleasure now, and laugh; 
 
 And King and Court may hang; 
 May hang; 
 
 And King and Court may hang! 
 
 I think betimes we are but slaves; 
 
 And how is it with you? 
 I feel anon that we are knaves 
 
 Another s will to do. 
 I doubt we need a King, or Court; 
 
 Ah, sharp is memory s fang! 
 Our sorrows die while we re at sport; 
 
 And King and Court may hang; 
 May hang; 
 
 And King and Court may hang! 
 
 95
 
 THE ROISTERING KNIGHTS 
 
 Who always would his armor wear? 
 
 Who always hold a lance? 
 This day a truce to fight we swear; 
 
 Our foes are far as France. 
 Up with the cup, my Comrades all ! 
 
 Each heart forget its pang. 
 We ll pledge to joy whate er befall, 
 
 And King and Court may hang; 
 May hang; 
 
 And King and Court may hang!
 
 OCEAN AFTER THE STORM 
 
 KLUE where clouds are shadowing her, 
 And green where the sunlight plays, 
 She lolls, to whom the tides defer, 
 And whom the storm obeys. 
 
 Her bosom heaves with slightest round, 
 
 Half at default to breathe, 
 Above her heart, where, held in bound, 
 
 Hushed undercurrents seethe. 
 
 She toys and teases with her spoil 
 With lapsing and lazy hands: 
 
 She scarce puts forth her strength to toil 
 Up to the slumberous sands. 
 
 Her voice is pulsing, langerous, low; 
 
 Its sound is a gentle balm, 
 As soft she sings through ebb and flow 
 
 A lulling rune of calm. 
 
 97
 
 OCEAN AFTER THE STORM 
 
 The breeze, the clouds, the guarding shore, 
 These feel neither fright nor care; 
 
 The bland skies spread their azure o er; 
 Noon smiles untroubled there. 
 
 Nay, she doth dim remember now 
 That broken and beaten form 
 
 That ship, rock- riven, stern and bow, 
 Blown lurching through the storm. 
 
 Nay, she doth not recall the tears, 
 Nor hands clasped to the skies, 
 
 The strong men s rage, the frantic fears, 
 The hopeless drowning cries. 
 
 Full gorged on wreck and tempest blight, 
 
 And satiate with her sway, 
 She rests, to muse upon her might, 
 
 And drowse and sleep a day. 
 
 98
 
 THE VOICELESS LYRE 
 
 VVfHO hath seen, where roses bloom, 
 
 Beauty sent to sudden doom 
 By the storm, with thunder knell, 
 Which from the blue sky strangely fell 
 Who knows what ruin there may be, 
 Let him hearken now to me. 
 
 Poets, born full in the smile 
 Of Nature, may not know the while, 
 The wind of scorn, the flood of blame, 
 Contempt, neglect, unearned shame, 
 That fall like storm upon the flower, 
 To blast them in greed s iron hour. 
 
 Thou, who, when the gladdening song 
 Sounds no more, awaitest long 
 That rapture and that melody, 
 Deeming not that they could die 
 Wait no more, nor count the hours ; 
 Think of storms and ruined flowers. 
 
 99
 
 TO FAUSTA 
 
 I F thou would st find and hold the best 
 
 Of all that life can give, 
 Would st still the questions in thy breast 
 
 If thou would st truly live, 
 Go, search the world for pleasure. Up ! 
 
 Range wide, o er land and seas, 
 Till life shall pall, a splendid cup 
 
 Drunk to the bitter lees. 
 
 Then, then return; and haply there, 
 
 Where first thy quest began, 
 Thy soul s own voice shall reach thine ear ; 
 
 "Behold, thou art a man! 
 Go forth for weal of human life : 
 
 Toil with the toiling throng ! 
 Thou only liv st in noble strife ; 
 
 But there, art glad and strong !" 
 
 100
 
 ROSE AND LILY 
 
 OOSE and Lily, little maids, 
 
 Wisely were they named. 
 
 He surely had a prophet s aids, 
 
 And should as one be famed, 
 Who saw them in their mother s arms 
 
 Ere they had strength to creep, 
 And conjuring with spells and charms, 
 Found them names to keep. 
 
 Coming, going, night or morn, 
 
 Resting, or at play, 
 Still as made for them are worn 
 
 Their names, for all must say, 
 Rose is like the blushing rose 
 
 Red cheeks, dark eyes and hair; 
 While Lily like the lily grows, 
 
 Tall and very fair. 
 
 101
 
 INVOCATION 
 
 bird in thy bower, 
 Sing, sing me a song. 
 
 Give joy for an hour, 
 
 For sorrow is long; 
 
 As long as the life that we live here, and only 
 dark death is more strong. 
 
 Sing softly and low; 
 
 Like the voice of a stream, 
 Or the music we know 
 
 In the depths of a dream: 
 
 The sweetest of all things unreal, the rarest of 
 raptures that seem. 
 
 Sing memoried peace; 
 
 Chant love s tender might. 
 Sing, sing, and not cease 
 
 Till thou thrillest the night, 
 And all the soft airs move atremble, responsive 
 to purest delight! 
 
 102
 
 INVOCATION 
 
 And my life shall be stilled 
 As a babe on the breast, 
 While desire is fulfilled 
 By visions most blest, 
 
 And ecstacies nameless but glowing, which 
 haunt where the heart knoweth best. 
 
 I ask not for thought; 
 
 I plead not to know; 
 For my being is wrought 
 
 With the truth that brings woe : 
 By all of the wisdom which helps not, save by 
 teaching hope how to forego. 
 
 Nay, joy may not live 
 
 If thought lingers near. 
 Thy music now give, 
 
 Kind bird, to mine ear; 
 
 And ever its cadence shall soothe me from 
 thought and its pangs while I hear. 
 
 303
 
 INVOCATION 
 
 The dew bathes the grass, 
 
 And the wind cools the tree ; 
 Hast thou nothing, alas, 
 
 Hast thou nothing for me? 
 I, who wait for thy cadence at twilight, and 
 offer my spirit to thee? 
 
 The moon comes not yet, 
 
 But the stars are white fire, 
 And fitly are met 
 
 With the soul of desire. 
 
 Tis the time for thy song, oh, my poet, who 
 tonchest a heavenly lyre. 
 
 Ah, gladness ! Remain !. 
 
 Ah, melody mine! 
 Again, yet again, 
 
 Thou singer divine : 
 
 My soul is as though thou had st made it; the 
 glad tears I weep now are thine ! 
 
 104
 
 A WARNING 
 
 I TXCROWN while ye may, ye Rulers and 
 
 Kings ; 
 
 Hide your heads from the wrath to be : 
 Time hath in store for ye bitter things ! 
 
 Hear ye the echo of pain as it rings? 
 
 Tis the voice of those who will yet be free. 
 Uncrown while ye may, ye Rulers and Kings. 
 
 Men endure your laughter, your taunts and 
 
 stings ; 
 
 But be not loud in your jubilee: 
 Time hath in store for ye bitter things ! 
 
 For Wrath cometh near; and the wind of her 
 
 wings 
 
 Is heard in the air as the sound of the sea! 
 Uncrown while ye may, ye Rulers and Kings. 
 
 105
 
 A WARNING 
 
 "Surely," ye whisper, "Man but clings 
 
 To his custorns, and sleeps." So it is with ye. 
 Time hath in store for ye bitter things ! 
 
 When man his servitude from him flings 
 
 And bursts his bonds, will ye think to flee? 
 Uncrown while ye may, ye Rulers and Kings ; 
 Time hath in store for ye bitter things ! 
 
 106
 
 IN A CITY GRAVEYARD 
 
 yellow grass is short and thin; 
 Grey-brown the ivies coil ; 
 The fume-choked trees yield little green 
 
 To the gardener s hopeless toil ; 
 And there are no flowers, for they could not 
 
 bloom 
 Upon the sickly soil. 
 
 Tis a tiny square between two streets 
 
 Where a human river falls, 
 And the city s turbid current beats 
 
 As in strife against its walls; 
 Where the dead are crowded in their tombs, 
 
 And know not what befalls. 
 
 The pall of fog and sulphurous smoke 
 
 It droops down through the air 
 Like a cloud of grief on a worn out heart, 
 
 Too stunned to feel or care. 
 It droops and drifts till it hides the sun, 
 
 That strives to dispel it there. 
 
 107
 
 IN A CITY GRAVEYARD 
 
 The birds they live where skies are blue, 
 
 For they cannot carol here. 
 They never come, when the spring is new, 
 
 Their nests of young to rear; 
 And you cannot hark to their happiness 
 
 When the dawn of day is near. 
 
 The city shoulders the little plot 
 
 And hems it in its place ; 
 The roar of traffic fills the spot 
 
 And would not give it grace ; 
 And greed casts short and envious looks, 
 
 As measuring its space. 
 
 And all is damp and dark and cold, 
 And the stones lean left and right. 
 
 The graveled walks are green with mould 
 And gruesome to the sight. 
 
 But the rails that crust with crinkled rust, 
 They shut the dead in tight. 
 
 They shut the dead in where there comes 
 
 No gush of clover meth. 
 They shut the dead in from the sky 
 
 And from the summer s breath. 
 They shut the dead in by themselves, 
 
 To die a double death. 
 
 108
 
 IN A CITY GRAVEYARD 
 
 They die twice o er who, covered here, 
 
 In noxious being lie; 
 Where dust may scarce return to dust 
 
 While all the years go by. 
 Yes, those who hide them in their holes 
 
 Condemn the dead to die. 
 
 For those who lie where winds are fresh. 
 
 And where the heavens are blue, 
 They live again in flowers, or trees, 
 
 Or meadows sweet with dew. 
 Yes, nature takes them to herself 
 
 And forms their lives anew. 
 
 The rivers run, the green hills rise, 
 
 The harvests ripen there ; 
 The goodly rain falls from the skies : 
 
 All things are free from care; 
 And worn things die and new things live, 
 
 And growth is everywhere. 
 
 But those who lie where city streets 
 
 Halt and close them round, 
 They lie like stones that do not change 
 
 But cumber all the ground. 
 They lie and shrivel in their shrouds, 
 
 By alien fetters bound. 
 
 109
 
 IN A CITY GRAVEYARD 
 
 They lie, dry clay in earth as dry, 
 
 Refused by hardened men 
 A home in the earth which gave them birth 
 
 And would welcome them back again : 
 With brick and iron and stone hemmed round 
 
 As in some prison pen. 
 
 It is a dreadful life to live 
 
 In the cruel city s hold; 
 For hope and faith soon falter there 
 
 And love itself grows cold; 
 And simple trust is turned to lust 
 
 As it hears the lie of gold. 
 
 It is a dreadful place to live 
 
 Where men no kindness learn, 
 But only breathe for the thought of gain, 
 
 Each taking the gambler s turn ; 
 And wildly win, and madly lose, 
 
 Till their hearts to ashes burn. 
 
 It. is a fearful place to live 
 
 Where men go thronging by 
 With nerveless haste in every step 
 
 And hunger in each eye; 
 It is a sorry place to live, 
 
 But what a place to die ! 
 
 110
 
 IN A CITY GRAVEYARD 
 
 To die amidst the roar and rush, 
 Where God Gold grinds the street, 
 
 And know no resting and no hush 
 Nor sunset shadows sweet, 
 
 But only sighs and raucous cries 
 Where waves of commerce beat. 
 
 To die, and lie in this cursed ground, 
 
 Where nothing fair is met; 
 Where never sounds a pleasant sound, 
 
 Nor flower of life is set ; 
 To die with but one good last thought 
 
 That to die is to forget. 
 
 Come greed, come Mammon; it is yours: 
 Stretch close your measures o er, 
 
 And pile the walls which guard your gold 
 Thrice higher than before. 
 
 Nay, let this mock of life and death 
 Be seen not any more ! 
 
 Build till your streets are dim in shade; 
 
 Heap wealth until it rust; 
 Strive while the better things of life 
 
 Are laughed at in their dust. 
 Hoard till your poisoned heart and brain 
 
 Are wearied with their lust! 
 
 Ill
 
 IN A CITY GRAVEYARD 
 
 Then let a newer world be born, 
 
 Well worthy of mankind; 
 With room to hope, with room to love; 
 
 With place for heart and mind. 
 With space to live, with space to die, 
 
 And no good left behind ! 
 
 112
 
 COURAGE, MY HEART 
 
 COURAGE, my heart, amidst the battle here! 
 
 Ever its winter season hath the year; 
 Rouse, rouse thyself, and fight on without fear ; 
 At last the flowered springtime will appear. 
 Courage, my heart! 
 
 Courage, my heart, and fail not in the fight ! 
 The day is struggling in the bonds of night; 
 Yield not one step : nay, dare all with thy might ; 
 The hours are counted that shall bring the light. 
 Courage, my heart! 
 
 Courage, my heart, and let deed follow deed ! 
 Slow is the increase of the long-sown seed; 
 Hear no dark words, and no forbodings heed ; 
 The harvest days will come and bring their meed. 
 Courage, my heart! 
 
 113
 
 COURAGE MY HEART 
 
 Courage, my heart, strive on for mastery! 
 The winds and waves have strength upon the sea ; 
 Remember that thou hast been bold and free; 
 The ship at length shall in its harbor be. 
 Courage, my heart! 
 
 Courage, my heart, and be thou staunch and 
 
 strong ! 
 The things are many which would work thee 
 
 wrong ; 
 
 Beat bravely now, and breast thy foes in throng; 
 For thou shalt triumph. Sing the victor s song ! 
 Courage, my heart! 
 
 114
 
 WARRIOR TRUTH 
 
 proof s linked armor on thy breast, 
 And words like swords to ward thee 
 
 well, 
 
 And shield of daring, that can tell 
 Of all the strifes which thou hast pressed, 
 Alert and ever without rest, 
 Fronting the false I see thee wait, 
 The fire of challenge in thy heart 
 And in thine eye the look of fate. 
 
 Or friendless neath the colder stars, 
 Or pilloried in the sun s hot glow, 
 Or vile betrayed by Judas foe, 
 Or bound and gagged behind steel bars, 
 Or swathing round thy cruel scars, 
 Or bleeding, with life pouring fast, 
 Thy spirit none could overwhelm 
 Through all thy countless combats past. 
 
 115
 
 WARRIOR TRUTH 
 
 Nay, thou art mightier than the might 
 Of every form of legioned lies; 
 Vaster in strength than hills that rise 
 And pierce the heavens with their height; 
 Greater than day or than the night; 
 Triumphant from thy first drawn breath, 
 Till torture hears thy battle song 
 Immortal on the lips of death ! 
 
 116
 
 LABOR S TRAGEDY 
 
 tragedy seek not the mimic stage ; 
 Look thou on men who fall neath Plutus 
 
 gyves : 
 These, robbed of manhood, hunger s battle 
 
 wage, 
 
 Giving for beggars crusts their beggared 
 lives ! 
 
 117
 
 TO MY COUNTRY 
 
 AM ERIC A, who fought st one tyrant down, 
 And paid thy blood until thy slaves were 
 
 freed, 
 Lo! thou hast wrought full good in many a 
 
 deed 
 
 Of liberty, nor trusted king or crown. 
 There have been lapses ; on thine high renown 
 Dark stains are dyed ; but thy true sons, thy 
 
 seed, 
 
 Who to thy grandeur harken with glad heed, 
 Weep at thy sins, and o er each folly frown. 
 
 Now wilt thou strike this monster, Mammon, 
 
 dead, 
 
 That blinds a people as kings did of old. 
 Nay, though the tempter sue thee, tireless, bold, 
 Be not to shame and sin and darkness wed; 
 But with thine hosts, on love of freedom fed, 
 Arise, and end the tyranny of gold ! 
 
 118
 
 WHAT SHALL IT PROFIT A MAN? 
 
 VI^HAT shall it profit a man if he shall gain 
 the whole world and lose his own soul ; 
 Shall sell all he is, save his might and the lusts 
 of the flesh, for mere glittering dole? 
 
 Which of his countless possessions shall equal 
 and pay for the loss he abides, 
 
 Of the just sense of truth, and innocent hopes 
 of good hap, and worthiest prides? 
 
 Who would give his good feelings, pure 
 thoughts, clean purposes sure, the clear 
 ness within, 
 
 For the tithes of black evil, the interest of 
 falsehood and pillage, the wages of sin? 
 
 119
 
 WHAT SHALL IT PROFIT A MAN 
 
 How can one find him delight in the counting 
 of gold and the measure of lands, 
 
 While he may not go forth with true kindness 
 at heart of his heart, and good deeds in* 
 his hands? 
 
 When shall it seem to him well that his tribute 
 comes quick and his coffers are sure, 
 
 As he sees haggard hunger stalk by and the 
 look of dismay in the eyes of the poor? 
 
 Whom shall he look to for friendship or for 
 comradely words through the lengthen 
 ing years, 
 
 While the power of his will upon men shall but 
 teach them to watch in hatreds and 
 fears ? 
 
 Whence may peace come to him smiling, and 
 bid him have rest, with his burden made 
 light, 
 
 Nor the hours of his sleep still torture and tear 
 with remorse in the midst of the tfiight? 
 
 120
 
 WHAT SHALL IT PROFIT A MAN 
 
 Where shall he flee that his brand as of Cain 
 shall be hidden nor seen any more, 
 
 And the ghosts of his love and his trust shall 
 not rise from their graves, and accuse 
 o er and o er? 
 * 
 
 Why shall he wish, then, to live, or have hope 
 of himself, or seek any goal 
 
 What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the 
 whole world and lose his own soul? 
 
 121
 
 A CAGED BIRD S SONG 
 
 I SIT and I sing with unmoved wing; 
 
 But though these be golden prison bars, 
 Oft I am sad when you think me glad, 
 
 With thoughts of the air and the sun and 
 stars. 
 
 I long to be free; and your love for me 
 Is stained with the wish to hold me here. 
 
 When I dream I could stay, still I must obey ; 
 For you trust me not, and your heart is fear. 
 
 I cannot forget if I would and yet 
 
 I should love you well if you loved me more. 
 
 Now I sit and I wait for an unlocked gate, 
 Then out into sunshine to sing and to soar! 
 
 If you cage me and hold till my wings grow 
 
 old, 
 
 I shall not be yours, whatever your art: 
 With this longing of mine I shall pine and 
 
 pine; 
 You will have my body, but never my heart ! 
 
 122
 
 THE BABY S SMILE 
 
 HPHE baby s smile, so strangely sweet, 
 
 It makes me wish, the while, 
 For worlds where I should ever meet 
 The baby s smile. 
 
 Born of pure joy ; so free from guile : 
 
 Flower of a heart whose beat 
 Is ever true midst good and vile. 
 
 Where men go masked, white with deceit, 
 
 Where shameless deeds defile, 
 One thing shows flawless and complete 
 The baby s smile ! 
 
 123
 
 PLACE de la CONCORDE 
 (PARIS) 
 
 HpO the roll of a drum 
 
 See the tumbrels come, 
 
 In irony s parade; 
 
 Each cart with a crew 
 Whose brows drip dew, 
 
 Whose cheeks to ashes fade. 
 
 Tis the sun of day : 
 
 Night fades away, 
 And the breeze flows freshly by; 
 
 The song of a bird 
 
 O erhead is heard, 
 But these are doomed to die ! 
 
 With a curse and a frown 
 
 They bid them down, 
 Each for his turn to wait ; 
 
 And none stands long, 
 
 Of weak or strong, 
 For death has lust to state. 
 
 124
 
 PLACE de la CONCORDE 
 
 See! Necks are bared, 
 
 And the blade prepared 
 Which rolls good heads in the mud. 
 
 The guillotine 
 
 It is quick and keen, 
 For it loves to taste warm blood. 
 
 And the killer who works, 
 
 He stoops, and jerks, 
 And lifts a lump on high, 
 
 And dangles a head, 
 
 Alive, though dead, 
 With its slowly closing eye. 
 
 A score lie still ; 
 
 And the mob, at will, 
 Shrieks vengeance or despair. 
 
 Hark : hear the mash 
 
 Of the feet asplash 
 In the gory runnels there ! 
 
 They come, they come, 
 Bound, gagged, and dumb; 
 
 And murder waits .... What ! . . . . Oh ! 
 Tis the fountain s plash; 
 And its crystal splash; 
 
 And the water s dripping flow. 
 
 125
 
 PLACE de la CONCORDE 
 
 Tis the carriage wheels ;- 
 And the muffled peals 
 
 Of a bell struck far away; 
 And the people clad 
 For a fete, and glad 
 
 With the joy of a holiday. 
 
 Tis a lofty stone, 
 That stands alone, 
 
 And not death s dread machine, 
 In a little plot 
 Which marks the spot 
 
 Where stood the guillotine. 
 
 And the Place shines fair 
 
 In the springtime air, 
 And the chestnut blossoms blow- 
 
 Twas another day, 
 
 In the far-away 
 Of six score years ago ! 
 
 They died for pride ; 
 
 For truth they died; 
 They died for good, and ill ; 
 
 But though their pain 
 
 Lives not again, 
 Their memories bleed here still. 
 
 126
 
 TO THE ENEMIES OF FREE SPEECH 
 
 AS well to lay your hands upon the sun 
 
 And try with bonds to bind the morning 
 
 light, 
 
 As well on the four winds to spend your might, 
 As well to strive against the streams that run; 
 As well to bar the seasons, bid be done 
 The rain which falls ; as well to blindly fight 
 Against the air, and at your folly s height 
 Aspire to make all power that is be none. 
 
 As well to do all this as to impeach 
 
 Man s tongue, and bid it answer to the schools; 
 
 As well to do all this, as gives us rules, 
 
 And bid us hold our words within your reach; 
 
 As well all this, as try to chain man s speech. 
 
 So others learned before ye lived, O fools ! 
 
 127
 
 THE RED FLAG 
 
 PLANNER of crimson waving there, 
 
 Thou shalt have full homage from me; 
 First among flags thou gleamest fair, 
 
 Symbol of love and of life made free. 
 The nations have chosen standards of state 
 
 To flaunt to the winds since time began; 
 Emblems of rivalry, pride and hate; 
 
 But thou are the flag of the world, of MAN. 
 
 Red as the blood of freedom s dead, 
 
 Thy hues might well have flowed from their 
 
 veins. 
 Red as the one blood of man is red, 
 
 Holy thou art in thy sanguine stains. 
 Holy as truth and holy as right; 
 
 Sacred as wisdom and sacred as love ; 
 Worthy the rapture that lifted to light 
 
 Thy glorious shape where it ripples above. 
 
 128
 
 THE RED FLAG 
 
 Unto the spirit of friendliness 
 
 Thou wast fashioned, to comfort man s hun 
 gry thought; 
 To shine for the deeds that alone can bless, 
 
 And the life of brotherhood nobly wrought. 
 Unto the spirit that rends the gyves 
 
 And shatters the bonds that makes men 
 
 slaves ; 
 The spirit that suffers and sinks and strives, 
 
 Till it strengthens hope, till it lifts and saves. 
 
 Thou art no new thing; thou hast waved from 
 
 of old. 
 Thou hast seen the day be born from the 
 
 night ; 
 And hast streamed for truth where the truth 
 
 was bold 
 
 As time fled on to the future s light. 
 Beyond all the seas, on many a shore, 
 
 Thou hast buttressed the heart and stiffened 
 
 the hand 
 To struggle for fellowship o er and o er, 
 
 From the youth to the age of the eldest land. 
 
 129
 
 THE RED FLAG 
 
 Thou hast called to battle ! Yea, thou hast led 
 
 Where men have followed, forgetting fears ; 
 
 And hast solaced the dying and graced the 
 
 dead, 
 
 Stained with blood and with dust and tears 
 Blood, a full tribute paid for peace; 
 
 Tears shed free o er humanity s wrongs, 
 While faith in thy cause, that could never 
 
 cease, 
 
 Met tyranny s swords, and fell, singing thy 
 songs. 
 
 As thou art loved, thou art loathed, full well; 
 
 Loathed and cursed by the lords of power. 
 Ever they name thee the flag of hell, 
 
 And rage in the fear of thy triumph hour. 
 But their grasp grows weak on the wills of 
 men; 
 
 Their armies falter; their guns are rust; 
 As from prison, and labor and poverty s den 
 
 Thy hosts speak NO to their crumbling lust. 
 
 130
 
 THE RED FLAG 
 
 See ! Now there greet thee ten million eyes, 
 
 And lips uncounted smile to thy red. 
 Yes, those who bow to thy crimson dyes, 
 
 Are myriads more than all of thy dead. 
 Lo ! The young clap hands at thy bright unrest ; 
 
 And the child in arms it leaps in its glee. 
 Nay, babes unborn, neath the mother s breast, 
 
 Are given and pledged to thy cause and thee ! 
 
 Banner of freedom, and freedom s peace, 
 
 Float in thy beauty, in sign of the day 
 When ravage of power and conquest shall 
 cease, 
 
 And mouldering tyranny pass away. 
 Who would not all for thy promise give? 
 
 As I gaze on thy folds one wish have I 
 To love thee and honor thee while I live, 
 
 And fold thee around me when I must die ! 
 
 131
 
 IN THE HOUR OF EXECUTION 
 
 IS this what we must bear, O Freedom, 
 
 Mother, 
 To see thy face and but to touch thy hand? 
 
 Is there no easier way? 
 Must death another take, and yet another, 
 While tears and lamentations through the 
 land 
 
 Show the great price we pay? 
 Yet, if it must be, Freedom, none say nay. 
 
 See, Thou, these waiting for the hangman s 
 
 halter ; 
 
 These friends of man, must these be given 
 to death? 
 
 Freedom, we ask again ! 
 If in the sacrifice we do not falter, 
 
 Wilt thou repay us for their strangled 
 breath ? 
 
 Wilt thou come nearer men? 
 Thou wilt, we hope. With groans we give 
 these, then. 
 
 132
 
 IN THE HOUR OF EXECUTION 
 
 The debt is paid ! Thy martyrs lie before us, 
 Their mute lips speak thy words into our 
 ears, 
 
 And bid us seek thee far. 
 Freedom, we know thy sun shall yet shine o er 
 
 us; 
 And looking up, exalted, through our tears, 
 
 We cry, beneath thy star, 
 "Take these! Take us, if need be; thine we 
 are!" 
 
 133
 
 THE ABANDONED MILL 
 
 I ong has it hidden, hushed and still, 
 
 Beside the river here. 
 The sagging doors swing to and fro ; 
 The roof is gone, the walls are low, 
 And half in dust lie beam and sill, 
 Rain-wasted many a year. 
 
 You hardly find it where it stands 
 
 And slowly crumbles down, 
 Vine wreathed and circled round by trees. 
 Like some walled garden filled with ease. 
 It lies up the verdant lands, 
 
 A blur of mellow brown. 
 
 The dam that pent those waters tight 
 
 No labor could redeem. 
 The water gates they lift no more, 
 But o er them amber waters pour; 
 And the flume that once shaped all that 
 might, 
 
 Lies buried in the stream. 
 
 r 
 
 134
 
 THE ABANDONED MILL 
 
 They left the city s stony street, 
 
 Mid profit s might and sway, 
 And brought the worship of base gold 
 Where green lands stretched and rivers 
 
 rolled ; 
 And builded here beside the wheat, 
 
 Among the flowers of May. 
 
 They builded here. They choked the flood, 
 
 Their turbines sucked it through. 
 The stunned woods echoed back the roar 
 And whine of shapes that picked and tore, 
 And spun and wove, with crash and thud, 
 That warp and woof be true. 
 
 But Nature welcomed not their din; 
 
 Her virginal clean life 
 Was far too full of gentleness ; 
 She startled at their noisome stress; 
 As though her heart were torn within 
 
 By all that alien strife. 
 
 The dyes ran turbid from the vats, 
 
 Polluting all the air. 
 They stained the waters ghastly green, 
 
 135
 
 THE ABANDONED MILL 
 
 And scummed the pools with purple sheen. 
 The fish all fled, and noxious gnats 
 Swarmed cloud-like everywhere. 
 
 No ; Nature saw her own depart, 
 
 To wait in sorrow far. 
 Her pleasant airs, her butterflies, 
 Her birds that gladdened earth and skies, 
 They vanished, and she felt the smart 
 
 Like an unhealing scar. 
 
 She set her borders round about, 
 
 And stayed not more anear; 
 Mourning darker days begun, 
 And dreaming on sweet seasons done. 
 Only the stream clove in and out, 
 
 Through lands all dead and sere. 
 
 The mill roared on from spring to fall, 
 
 And round to spring again ; 
 Daily the sun rose in the sky, 
 Yet never did the tumult die. 
 It almost seemed men would forestall 
 
 The months, nor let the wane; 
 
 136
 
 Forgetting rest, and toiling still, 
 As though they might not wait : 
 
 As if to struggle were the end 
 
 To which all life was born to bend; 
 
 The iron measure of the will, 
 The very law of fate. 
 
 Full hard they strove by day and night 
 
 To shape their produce fair ; 
 And by the scores the young and strong, 
 Man and maid in anxious throng, 
 Toiled at the task with merging might, 
 
 Sore wearied with their care. 
 
 Full hard they strained through dust and 
 din, 
 
 And struggled still for pelf; 
 But hour by hour they failed to hold 
 Their grasp upon the hoarded gold : 
 Their substance piled up high within, 
 
 In box, in bale, on shelf. 
 
 No ; Mammon s might would not endure 
 
 Save where the cities ward. 
 They could not barter what they wrought, 
 
 137
 
 THE ABANDONED MILL 
 
 Nor could they win the power they sought. 
 They could not make their profits sure, 
 Though striving long and hard. 
 
 Upon a day no din arose 
 
 To shame the rising sun. 
 No winding labor plodding down, 
 Emptied the hillside little town; 
 And each man spoke as one who knows 
 
 That wearying tasks are done. 
 
 No smoke fled from the chimney more ; 
 
 No stains befouled the stream ; 
 No noxious odors choked the air 
 And left the spring winds poisoned there; 
 And rock and turf and wave and shore 
 
 Seemed waiting in a dream 
 
 Yes, that great voice at last grew still 
 
 Upon a morn in May; 
 And there the owners came and stood, 
 Debating over mill and flood ; 
 Disputing on their venture, till 
 
 A fortnight passed away. 
 
 138
 
 THE ABANDONED MILL 
 
 They freed the stream; they stopped the 
 wheels ; 
 
 They barred the portals tight; 
 They covered o er, as though in tombs, 
 The silent spindles, cards and looms, 
 The shining shuttles and the reels, 
 
 And shuttered out the light. 
 
 And thus they left it, with their host, 
 
 To come not back again. 
 They left it, master, artisan; 
 They left it, to a single man. 
 Long years it stood, the mocking ghost 
 
 Of all their labors vain. 
 
 Long, long it stood ; they came not back, 
 
 And none remained to tell. 
 The floors began to sag and sink; 
 And in the walls showed many a chink; 
 And every chink yawned to a crack ; 
 
 Until it crumbling, fell. 
 
 It stood, then fell ; and Nature now, 
 
 As if in pity s guise, 
 Has covered o er the walls with green, 
 
 139
 
 THE ABANDONED MILL 
 
 And aisles where Mammon walked be 
 tween ; 
 
 And makes it all her own somehow, 
 Half hidden from her eyes. 
 
 Gone are the signs of price and pelf; 
 
 Gone every usurer. 
 The wild rose blooms atop the wall ; 
 There flutters near the cardinal; 
 And the lizard lies and suns itself, 
 
 And harks to the grasshopper. 
 
 No more the sweating worker strains 
 Through weary rounds of toil : 
 
 Not here he wishes day were done ; 
 
 Not here he sighs at set of sun, 
 
 And feels the blood ache in his veins 
 Because of marring moil. 
 
 No more the master counts his hoard 
 
 Or reckons on his loss; 
 Young trees are springing where he stood 
 And only thought of his own good ; 
 And in the vault, where wealth was stored, 
 
 The floor is velvet moss. 
 
 140
 
 THE ABANDONED MILL 
 
 The steel shapes lie in blistering rust; 
 
 But o er them, for a sign, 
 With random clasp and careless grace, 
 As holding them in half embrace, 
 Trailing bright trumpets in the dust, 
 
 Wild honeysuckles twine. 
 
 And murmuring bees are busy here, 
 
 And rainbow butterfles; 
 And winds go wandering to and fro 
 With softest voice, and gently blow; 
 W T hile like great sails, now far, now near, 
 
 White clouds float in blue skies. 
 
 The children play beside the wave 
 
 And shout all glad and free ; 
 Startling the fish, which keep them cool 
 In many a deeper channeled pool ; 
 And cattle stand and drink and lave 
 
 With woodland liberty. 
 
 The pleasant fields anear have life, 
 
 Where farmers stir the soil ; 
 Where singing plowmen guide their 
 shares, 
 
 141
 
 THE ABANDONED MILL 
 
 And live their day with lightest cares 
 Not serving in some alien strife, 
 But simple, wholesome toil. 
 
 And all around are sun and shade 
 
 And the river s pleasant voice. 
 The quiet of pure harmony 
 Upon the whole earth seems to lie 
 From morning till the day is stayed, 
 And the watching stars rejoice. 
 
 It is an ardent hour in June, 
 
 Of wedded earth and skies; 
 And all that is seems wholly blent, 
 As if perfection thus were spent: 
 As if life here had sought a boon, 
 And shaped a paradise. 
 
 142
 
 IBSEN 
 
 pHOU warrior who had st for captain, Truth, 
 Who, reared to knightly service, shrank st 
 
 from naught 
 
 Of all the deeds whence victory is wrought, 
 But stoutly held st thine own in age and youth, 
 Thou wast indeed of those whom power indu th 
 With Titan strength ; in double darkness fraught 
 With giant falsehoods thy long fight was fought, 
 But these found in thy hand no touch of ruth. 
 
 Now is the end, with peace unknown before; 
 For death hath come and said, "Enough: give 
 
 o er." 
 
 Fold then, at last, thine arms across thy breast 
 And take the soldier s well-earned boon of rest; 
 Which, when all honor his, there is no more, 
 And after war s long ardor, seemeth best. 
 
 143
 
 A DESIRE 
 
 I ET me be loved ! I do not ask for fame, 
 
 Or grandeur of a splendid hollow name 
 Cut deep in bronze or marble to forgetfulness ; 
 Rather than be a Caesar, Angelo, 
 Or Croesus to whom seas of wealth must flow, 
 I would be one that all his fellow men might 
 bless. 
 
 The Earth grows full of deeds which stagger 
 
 thought, 
 
 And vast achievements unto wonder wrought 
 The works of might which challenge awe or bid 
 
 us fear; 
 
 But what are such to acts that find their end 
 In giving every man the world for friend, 
 And bring time s best-of-gifts, the golden age, 
 more near? 
 
 144
 
 A DESIRE 
 
 Nay, what are victories over land and sea, 
 The air subdued, invention s mastery, 
 Life s means increased, and each gigantic mar 
 velous plan; 
 
 Nay, what are all the triumphs of the past, 
 Save as they serve to form one race at last, 
 And merge their ripe results in free confederate 
 man! 
 
 Let me be loved. Yes, give to me his heart 
 Who treasures in his breast the artless art 
 To put one wish, one word on every living lip; 
 Let me be him, and have his gracious mind, 
 Whose power finds fruits in arms and hearts 
 
 entwined, 
 
 Whose monument at last is world-wide fellow 
 ship. 
 
 145
 
 TO THE COLD 
 
 ^[O more your lukewarm praise to martyrs give, 
 Ye men who drowse while warring worlds 
 
 pass by ; 
 These men faced wrong like men, and died to 
 
 live, 
 While ye, born soulless, do but live to die! 
 
 146
 
 THE AGITATOR 
 
 hurrying thousands meet, 
 And pour in living streams on either 
 
 hand, 
 Amidst the strident street, 
 
 With set and stubborn face he takes his stand, 
 The lesson to repeat 
 
 Of evil days and acts which curse the land. 
 
 Indifference cools him not; 
 
 And jeers and blows he takes, perchance, be 
 side. 
 Brave, he accepts his lot ; 
 
 At worst he meets it with a martyr s pride. 
 To bear, he knows not what, 
 
 He seeks the crowd and will not be denied. 
 
 147
 
 THE AGITATOR 
 
 His voice is loud and strong, 
 
 And vigorous gestures add their potent force, 
 As to the restless throng 
 
 He pictures clear corruption s crafty course, 
 Or challenges the wrong 
 
 Which in some unjust privilege finds its source. 
 
 A true son of the soil, 
 
 And feeling, as the hard-pressed masses feel, 
 The things which mar and spoil, 
 
 And bind life down with bonds as strong as 
 
 steel, 
 He knows the men who toil, 
 
 And truth to these he can most clear reveal. 
 
 No knotty theories 
 
 He offers to the listeners who attend, 
 Or generalities, 
 
 Which glitter with the gilt that fine words 
 
 lend; 
 He sets forth what he sees 
 
 So simply that who hears can comprehend. 
 
 148
 
 THE AGITATOR 
 
 The deep philosopher, 
 
 The pedant wise, whose wisdom makes him 
 
 cold, 
 Instructs, but cannot stir 
 
 The heart of work, whose hope is tired and old ; 
 But this one strives to spur 
 
 The rebel in the blood and make it bold. 
 
 He lifts the common thought, 
 
 And e en the common heart up to the light; 
 Till, by his teaching wrought 
 
 To understand their wrongs and know their 
 
 might, 
 Plain men at last are brought 
 
 To rouse in truceless struggle for the right. 
 
 149
 
 THE CHALLENGE OF LIBERTY 
 
 Man, Arouse! Awake! 
 Put the sleep from off thine eyes ; 
 At last the Dark of Ages dies. 
 A flush mounts in the eastern skies ; 
 The Morn begins to break. 
 Hear thou ! Arise ! Arise ! 
 
 That mad dream of thy Kind 
 The dream that life must feed on fear; 
 That man to man may draw not near ; 
 That Thou art borne to hatred here 
 
 Nay, put it out of mind. 
 Be thou of better cheer ! 
 
 Let thy doubts be done. 
 Master and Slave shall be no more ! 
 Around the Earth, from shore to shore, 
 Cry, "Comrades, come! Time s night is o er!" 
 
 Then turn and greet the Sun, 
 With Glory all before! 
 
 150
 
 HIS FIRST SNOW 
 
 HER sweet babe laughs where he lies 
 
 At the snow floating down from the skies. 
 At first with a look of surprise 
 He gazed at the thing of strange guise ; 
 Questioning; making replies; 
 Brow-puckered, to criticise. 
 
 He exclaimed. Then we saw in his eyes 
 
 An expression of wondrous surmise. 
 
 Was his thought that some hand very wise 
 
 For him a new joy did devise? 
 
 He crowed, and attempted to rise. 
 
 But time, unrelenting, denies 
 
 Strength unto forms of such size ; 
 
 So he stretches his hands toward the skies 
 
 And looks and laughs where he lies. 
 
 151
 
 MAGDALENE PASSES 
 
 V\^HAT one is this, that bears the band of 
 
 shame within her breast, 
 And wanders through the mocking land, denied 
 
 a place of rest? 
 What one is this, your hue and cry pursue with 
 
 withering hate,- 
 Until her best hope is to die, nor meet a harder 
 
 fate? 
 
 This, this is she who hides her head in shame 
 to gloom the sun ; 
 
 Who waits, as in their graves the dead, until 
 the day is done; 
 
 Whose tasks make pitiful the dark, and dread 
 ful all the night, 
 
 And leave her spirit stricken stark and crushed 
 at morning light. 
 
 152
 
 MAGDALENE PASSES 
 
 Beneath the show of silk and lace her form is 
 
 spare and shrunk, 
 And through the rouge upon her face see how 
 
 her cheeks have sunk. 
 Her lightsome laugh hides not her thought; her 
 
 brow is scarred with care, 
 And her flashing rings with jewels wrought, 
 
 but gild and grace despair. 
 
 Has she no tears to weep^for grief, no voice to 
 cry with woe, 
 
 No memories panged beyond belief for joys of 
 long ago, 
 
 Has she no tortured dreams to smart, no an 
 guish for her brow, 
 
 Has she no broken bleeding heart, that you 
 must curse her now? 
 
 Is here no innocence o erthrown, no wrecked 
 
 sweet maidenhood, 
 
 No sense of loss, like heavy stone, to make 
 j her doubt all good? 
 
 Are here no woman s ruined charms, no dead 
 
 and withered breasts? 
 Are here no hapless, vacant arms, which should 
 
 lull babes to rest? 
 
 153
 
 MAGDALENE PASSES 
 
 And what are you, who at her gird, and deem 
 
 yourselves unstained; 
 Do you forget your black, false word, the 
 
 righteous act disdained, 
 Your lust of power, the debtor s tears, cold 
 
 hunger s starving cries, 
 And all the evil of your years, that clamors to 
 
 the skies ! 
 
 Your horror is a veil to wear and cover o er 
 
 your deeds; 
 Your wrongs are pointing at you there, though 
 
 none their presence heeds. 
 Your vileness would itself deny in falsest hate 
 
 of hers; 
 Gaze at yourselves with inward eye, you 
 
 whited sepulchers! 
 
 Repent! Your vanity betrays, and wrenches 
 
 reason strong, 
 Until it warps the truth to ways which shape 
 
 a right of wrong; 
 But every sin is still a sin; and if your hands 
 
 be shriven, 
 Her heart is not more black within, and she 
 
 shall be forgiven. 
 
 154
 
 MAGDALENE PASSES 
 
 You ask not where those siren lips learned their 
 
 unworthy skill, 
 Nor reck of how shame s black eclipse obscured 
 
 her purer will. 
 You think not whence fair thoughts like flowers 
 
 gave room to passions low ; 
 You know not of her girlhood s hours; you do 
 
 not care to know. 
 
 Nay! But the truth cries for the light, and 
 
 struggles to be heard ; 
 The story of her bruise and blight shall out in 
 
 burning word 
 Yours was the power which crushed that grace 
 
 and gave it to despair, 
 And the mask of beauty on that face, your hands 
 
 have painted there ! 
 
 She was the temple of your lust, the altar of your 
 
 greed ; 
 The sacrifice of faith and trust you made with 
 
 careful heed. 
 She was the price of pleasure s worth, the weight 
 
 against your gold, 
 Where love and truth repine in dearth, and all 
 
 is bought and sold. 
 
 155
 
 MAGDALENE PASSES 
 
 And will you loathe your work at last, and spurn 
 
 her with disgust? 
 And shall your pride blot out the past and hide 
 
 her murdered trust? 
 And will you brand upon her brow the deeds 
 
 which she doth do? 
 Speak ; will you dare to hate her now, who weeps, 
 
 and pardons you? 
 
 Nay, no more scoff to see her sink, nor laugh 
 
 upon her tears; 
 You shall not hand hate s baneful drink, and 
 
 mock her with your jeers. 
 Bow down and hide your heads for shame, and 
 
 for your acts atone, 
 Accept your guilt ; abide your blame ; nor cast 
 
 a single stone. 
 
 And crimson sin shall balance sin, and none shall 
 
 be denied, 
 Till every heart is soft within and humbled in 
 
 its pride. 
 And each with each shall equal stand, and all be 
 
 one in worth, 
 Till every hand shall clasp a hand and love shall 
 
 fill the earth. 
 
 156
 
 PLUTUS AND DEMOS 
 
 DLUTUS hath riches of untold degree; 
 
 He goeth to bed in gold, and riseth up ; 
 And Demos, ah, none live so poor as he, 
 Who knoweth not if he shall dine or sup ! 
 
 Plutus hath wheaten loaves and dainty fare ; 
 
 Plutus hath raiment fine, and purchased art. 
 Demos grows old in youth with withering care ; 
 
 But Demos, though tis broken, hath a heart. 
 
 157
 
 IN RENUNCIATION 
 
 GARTH S winter hath the friendly sun, 
 
 Which smiles upon the snow; 
 And bright on bending boughs of trees 
 
 The fresh frost blossoms blow. 
 Earth s winter hath the fields asleep, 
 
 Which hear no freezing wind, 
 And willing streams that patient creep 
 
 Where icy fetters bind. 
 
 Heart s winter hath the glow of thought 
 
 That flames to comprehend, 
 And will which nobly scorns to break, 
 
 The while it yields to bend. 
 Heart s winter hath the unruffled soul 
 
 Whose labors may not cease, 
 And life still making toward its goal, 
 
 Filled with the strength of peace. 
 
 158
 
 THE MODERN TYRANT 
 
 HE doth not gather armies in his hand, 
 
 With generals and captains formed for 
 
 fight, 
 
 And swooping down with hosts in steeled might, 
 O erwhelm a nation and lay waste its land; 
 Nor through wars treacherous wiles doth he 
 
 command 
 
 To slaughter freedom s servants in the night, 
 And thus by stealth break every sword of right 
 Not with shed blood doth he the truth withstand. 
 
 His hosts are shaped of heaped coins of gold 
 Dazzling a people drunk with tricks of power; 
 His generals and captains, shame s true flower, 
 Are bribes to silence men who else were bold; 
 Who now sit calm, complaisant, hour by hour 
 To see truth trafficked in, and honor sold ! 
 
 159
 
 THE RULER 
 
 IN comradeship his nature has no part; 
 
 The power to rule and scorn is all his aim. 
 
 "Give me a throne which crushes mankind s heart 
 
 And let my glory be the whole world s shame !" 
 
 160
 
 FRIENDSHIP 
 
 cannot rise too high for this ; 
 We cannot fall too low. 
 Or praised as gods, or in the duj t, 
 It follows where we go. 
 
 It is not gained through noble deeds ; 
 
 It shrinks not from life s hurts. 
 Too humble tis for pride to taint, 
 
 Too great to seek deserts. 
 
 Its sacred solace all accept 
 
 Nor ponder on the cause ; 
 It is of things that ask no rule, 
 
 That stand above the laws. 
 
 Of things upon no judgment built; 
 
 No weighing of the mind 
 The hunger of the human heart 
 
 To treasure still its kind. 
 
 161
 
 FRIENDSHIP 
 
 Amidst the loathing and the scorn 
 
 Some hands will faithful be ; 
 If honors thicken, such will yet 
 
 Give love s simplicity. 
 
 Our morning sun, it shines when strength 
 
 Keeps failure from us far ; 
 And when we sink, and strive no more, 
 
 It glows, our evening star.
 
 TO CERTAIN WRITERS 
 
 Vf OLJ, w ho write for the past realists, poets, 
 
 romancers, 
 
 Waifs of a time that has fled, or lingers a mo 
 ment, to go 
 You pause in the grey of this dawn like a rout of 
 
 poor mountebank dancers, 
 Who feel themselves out of place, and whose 
 antics none relish or know. 
 
 For this is the new day of Earth, and the spirit 
 
 of comradeship, waking, 
 Springs from its centuried bed and hastens, 
 
 majestic, to light ; 
 Lo ! the hand of its strength is athrill with the 
 
 rending of things and the breaking, 
 As it crushes the lies of the past and sweeps 
 them away to the night. 
 
 163
 
 TO CERTAIN WRITERS 
 
 Here the fresh heart of mankind, turning away 
 
 from your heroes 
 And heroines great by a code; with thrones, 
 
 and a world in the dust 
 Turning away from your true and your false, all 
 
 your plebs and your Neros, 
 Spurns on them outworn and rotting, and 
 laughs at their hope and their lust. 
 
 Yes, a strong Titan, new born, your hoary old 
 
 customs disdaining 
 
 Your rights and your wrongs, your shadow- 
 like virtues and sin, 
 Heartens itself for its tasks, the gaining of things 
 
 worth the gaining, 
 
 And with a fresh song in its mouth bends glad 
 o er the work and begins. 
 
 What can you give of the dead, that is not as 
 
 dead in the giving? 
 All this old life on our minds weighs down and 
 
 is heavy as lead. 
 Away with these mummies that mock, and as 
 
 you live, write for the living! 
 Or if you are weak with the old, lie down and 
 be still with your dead. 
 
 164
 
 "THE days are calm. By this we know 
 
 What Spring late whispered to the snow, 
 Begone and let the wild flowers blow !" 
 
 -6 
 
 The sun grows warm upon the earth 
 That naked lay in death and dearth, 
 And lo, the young green grass in birth ! 
 
 A smell of mold is in the air, 
 
 Blown from the hillside plowman s share, 
 
 Which doth the fallow ground prepare ; 
 
 Loud laugh the brooks ; the soft air plays ; 
 
 The silver pussy willows raise 
 
 Their heads along the winding ways; 
 
 Anemone and violet 
 
 Await the call which they must get, 
 
 Low hid where woods and fields are met; 
 
 165
 
 ANNOUNCEMENT 
 
 The swelling twigs on every tree 
 Announce the leaves ; the summer bee 
 Comes forth and hums as he were free; 
 
 The birds grow glad about the door ; 
 Each morning brings another score 
 To live the happy seasons o er; 
 
 And whoso hears and sees these things, 
 
 His winter care away he flings, 
 
 And sings, and labors while he sings. 
 
 ICG
 
 COMPENSATION 
 
 I F I may have none other hope than this, 
 
 That my life will not prove all void and vain, 
 But show ripe fruit and worthy when its wane 
 Calls truth to witness, much I must bear to miss ; 
 I shall have need to turn from thoughts of bliss 
 And set myself a stoic strength to gain ; 
 Have need to laugh at weakness, welcome pain, 
 And hold the world s cold frown e en as her kiss. 
 
 If I may have none other hope Ye deeds 
 
 In which we prove ourselves of finest mold, 
 Too great for praise, too pure for Lust of fame, 
 Ye still shall bring to man, now, as of old, 
 That fair reward, the greatest of all meeds, 
 A lofty joy, commensurate with the aim! 
 
 167
 
 THE CRY OF HUMANITY 
 
 CAD with grief and stricken with strange sor 
 row, 
 
 Panged with pains of tasks that bear no fruit, 
 Choked with recollections that can borrow 
 
 Naught of peace to make black memory mute, 
 Bitter with long trial and lamentation, 
 
 Hopes that fail and fears which foil each plan, 
 Empty of all laughter and elation, 
 
 Sound the cries of man. 
 
 Hark, the words of mourning and dejection 
 
 From all human hearts in weariness ! 
 "Oh!", they grieve, "There is no recollection 
 
 Save of hopeless hope and barren stress. 
 Strife there is, and struggle unabating; 
 
 Time is wed with sorrows that ne er cease. 
 Worn are we with wishing and with waiting; 
 
 Is there any peace?" 
 
 168
 
 THE CRY OF HUMANITY 
 
 The rich cry out, "We live in golden anguish 
 
 And barren labor of vain luxury. 
 Amidst our power and place we tire and languish, 
 
 And all our spoil is hidden misery ! 
 Restless still, we seek the ways of pleasure; 
 
 The world we search to satiate our lust. 
 Hoarding joys of living without measure, 
 
 We sicken with disgust !" 
 
 The poor give voice: "Naught win we for our 
 labor 
 
 Save weariness of hands and bitter bread ; 
 We that have want and penury for neighbor, 
 
 Nor may we take thought that we be clothed or 
 
 fed! 
 We serve, yet gain not ; trust without requiting ; 
 
 Gather our fruits to see them born away ; 
 For us there is nor pleasure nor delighting, 
 
 From day to dreary day!" 
 
 Young and old, and weak and strong, are plain 
 ing; 
 
 Wise and foolish wonder and bewail 
 "What we gather, is it worth the gaining? 
 
 When we triumph do we more than fail ? 
 
 169
 
 THE CRY OF HUMANITY 
 
 Joy there is, we see not how tis hidden ; 
 
 Where waits balm in Gilead for our woes? 
 Are all to feasts of dust and ashes bidden 
 
 Until brief life s dark close?" 
 
 The yearning- cries they echo without ceasing, 
 
 Sombre at daybreak, sad at day s dark end : 
 "Pity we pray for sadness still increasing, 
 
 And life that not a little joy will lend !" 
 All men bow down and fear joy cometh never 
 
 "If life hath good, let no more hours go by; 
 If there be hope, must we but hunger ever? 
 
 Help us, or we die!" 
 
 170
 
 MARTYRDOM 
 
 HpO look for the truth with an open mind, 
 
 Bravely leaving the lies behind; 
 Suffering doubt, and, even worse, 
 The pangs of superstition s curse 
 Or to hide the truth neath falsehood s crust, 
 And let your mind corrode in rust, 
 Fearing to know, and clinging still 
 To the dreams which work your nature ill ; 
 Reason and wisdom rejected; come; 
 Which is the greater martyrdom ! 
 
 To utter your thoughts before all men ; 
 Speaking full freely with voice and pen; 
 True to the truth, while it brings to you 
 But cold contempt or a harsh taboo 
 Or to lock your lips, all worth resigned, 
 While you make a grave of the fruitful mind ; 
 And fawn on the knee with the fawning crowd, 
 The shallow-souled and the narrow-browed; 
 The price of your silence a slave s ease; 
 
 come; 
 Which is the greater martyrdom ! 
 
 171
 
 MARTYRDOM 
 
 To act as you think ; untrammelled and bold ; 
 To do and to give, or refuse and withhold; 
 Enduring scorn, or things more fell; 
 The mob perhaps, or a prison cell 
 Or to chain your hands to your chained lips, 
 And crouch, your manhood in eclipse; 
 For the whip of a custom to come or go ; 
 To the idols of force your head bowed low ; 
 Your payment a server s existence; come; 
 Which is the greater martyrdom ! 
 
 To live for the right though the whole world 
 
 blame; 
 
 Taking no fftmight of fame or shame ; 
 Fighting; and falling if you must; 
 Your face to the wrong as you sink in the 
 
 dust 
 
 Or to sell your heart and your soul for peace, 
 And get for your gain a longer lease 
 Of a life which at most can be but a lie ; 
 Bound in shame till it rot and die ; 
 All of its potencies palsied; come; 
 Which is the greater martyrdom! 
 
 172
 
 NOVEMBER VIOLETS 
 
 A MONG the ruins of the year they stood; 
 Blue, delicate blossoms and their bright 
 
 green leaves. 
 Summer was dead, and Autumn with her 
 
 sheaves 
 Had laughed and gone when, smiling in the 
 
 wood, 
 
 I saw their faces. "Beauty s hardihood!" 
 I cried, rejoicing. "What strange woe bereaves 
 Man, that too oft he slackly stands and grieves, 
 Aimless, and mumuring life hath little good?" 
 
 If we have power in us, it is a joy 
 
 That we may spring like blossoms from the 
 
 mire; 
 
 There is a rapture in the high employ, 
 Early or late, through gracious days or dire. 
 There is a glory, time cannot destroy 
 In facing all with hearts which never tire! 
 
 173
 
 STRIKE 
 
 and daughters born of toil, 
 Whom the proud, the rich despoil, 
 Will you longer starve and moil, 
 
 Driven like dumb beasts? 
 Comes a time for this to end : 
 Selfish power shall surely bend; 
 No more mind and body spend 
 For their idle feasts. 
 
 You have begged, and you have plead 
 With swollen powers on plenty fed ; 
 New slaves were ready in your stead : 
 
 They coldly bade you go. 
 You have ceased work here and there 
 On locked doors they let you stare. 
 Now you can but yield, or dare 
 
 To make wrong feel and know ! 
 
 174
 
 STRIKE 
 
 Let all service halt. Be done! 
 Day by day, yes sun by sun, 
 None shall labor, no, not one, 
 
 Nor heed them any more. 
 Clasp each comrade hand in hand; 
 Be as friends throughout the land; 
 Swear an oath to staunchly stand 
 
 Till all their rule is o er. 
 
 They have strength, but so have you ; 
 They, are bold, be you, then, true ; 
 Wrong is grey, your hope is new: 
 
 Yield not, and they yield. 
 You have life and you have light; 
 You have truth, and wisdom s might; 
 On your side there stands the right ; 
 
 Learn the right to wield ! 
 
 Starve and smile, nor break with care; 
 Fail not, though your backs be bare, 
 Nor shelter greet you anywhere 
 
 Victory loves the brave ! 
 Let them crowd their prisons well ; 
 Let their tortures taste of hell; 
 Triumph shall ring through the knell, 
 
 Though you find a grave. 
 
 175
 
 STRIKE 
 
 Think, think, only of your cause : 
 Care not for the world s applause ; 
 Fear no vile enjoining laws; 
 
 Strong be heart and brain. 
 Strong until the masters pale, 
 Strong until their power must fail, 
 Strong until their hands shall quail 
 
 Neath your grand disdain ! 
 
 Strike at forge, at mine, at mill; 
 Strike at loom, at lathe, at still: 
 Be the prospect well or ill, 
 
 Stand unitedly! 
 
 Power and arms and gold defy; 
 Strike against the social lie; 
 Strike until oppression die: 
 
 Strike for liberty! 
 
 176
 
 A DAY OF RECKONING 
 
 DEACE? Nay, not always! War for men, 
 
 not peace, 
 
 When liberty becomes an empty sound! 
 Let rage rise up, art, labor, science cease, 
 And forth, thou cleansing wrath, to battle 
 ground ! 
 
 177
 
 WIND OF THE DAWN 
 
 of the morning, young and free, 
 Flown o er the headlands in from the 
 
 sea, 
 
 Winning thy way through the dim half dusk, 
 Sweet with salt and the sea flowers musk, 
 Refreshing Day as she cometh there, 
 Cooling her hands and kissing her hair, 
 Waking her world where it lies in sleep 
 With the tonic breath of the western deep, 
 How did st thou know that Night had with 
 drawn, 
 
 Wind of the dawn; 
 
 How did st thou guess in thy far clime, 
 Wind of the morning time? 
 
 Wind of the daylight, when the moon 
 Faltered, to fail after night s high noon, 
 Did Morning beacon with purpling sky, 
 As the dark with its dreams and its dews 
 swept by 
 
 178
 
 WIND OF THE DAWN 
 
 Over the headlands and out to the sea, 
 Far through the gates of the mist, past thee? 
 Then did st thou heed her, and hasten on 
 Back o er the road that pale Night had gone, 
 Sounding thy vigorous herald horn, 
 
 Wind of the morn? 
 
 it thus that thou earnest; was this thy 
 way, 
 
 Wind of the dawning day? 
 
 179
 
 THE BELLS 
 
 shone that rich day of our love, 
 Lavished midst Autumn s bannered 
 
 trees : 
 
 A wondrous blue spread soft above ; 
 Around us clung a scented lingering breeze. 
 The shimmering air streamed golden mist, 
 
 And from a mellow-tongued bell 
 There spake a voice the while we clasped and 
 
 kissed: 
 
 "Lo, life s glad hours are brief; ah, love ye, 
 lovers, well !" 
 
 Anhungered were we; in our hearts 
 
 Love s season ripened like the year. 
 We sought its fruits with passioned arts ; 
 We said the words all honey-sweet to hear. 
 We looked the things love could not say, 
 
 And felt our hands his secrets tell ; 
 And still that peal rang through the passing 
 
 day: 
 
 "Lo, life s glad hours are brief; ah, love ye, 
 lovers, well!" 
 
 180
 
 THE BELLS 
 
 Our fervors, trembling, thrilled us through; 
 Love s quenchless lamp consumed with 
 
 fire. 
 
 The garland trees shone fair anew; 
 Life sang, and player a rapturous throbbing 
 
 lyre. 
 All things seemed made for thee and me, 
 
 As love had leashed them in a spell, 
 And still that sound told soft and tenderly: 
 "Lo, life s glad hours are brief; ah, love ye, 
 lovers, well !" 
 
 We answered it with yearning tears, 
 
 With clasping hands, with clinging lips. 
 We pledged, enraptured, future years 
 To love s all sweet, most rare apocalypse. 
 We rose at last and sought the night, 
 Our night, below there, in the dell ; 
 Rang through the sunset s ambient, beckoning 
 
 light: 
 
 "Lo, life s glad hours are brief; ah, love ye, 
 lovers, well!" 
 
 181
 
 THE ROOKS 
 
 TTHE rooks in a band are in flight through the 
 
 sky, 
 For they wing far away ere the night dews are 
 
 dry; 
 
 Confederate still, as they were in their trees, 
 Though parting to mountains and meadows 
 
 and seas. 
 
 Each morning they flit to the crest of a knoll, 
 And chatter like wisdom discussing its goal; 
 Then far through the air their dark courses are 
 
 drawn, 
 Their wings beating bold toward the gates of 
 
 the dawn. 
 
 At evening they come with a sound like a wind, 
 
 Strong leaders in front, and tired stragglers be 
 hind, 
 
 Close gathered from mountain and moorland and 
 stream, 
 
 Like a black shining cloud in the sunset s last 
 gleam. 
 
 182
 
 THE ROOKS 
 
 They flutter to earth, whence they fly to the trees 
 In scores, or in sixes, in twos, or in threes ; 
 In peace and in order their thousands bestowed, 
 With room for each one in the green-leaved 
 
 abode. 
 
 i 
 
 These rookeries amply have sheltered their young 
 For half of the years that the branches have 
 
 swung. 
 
 They nest close together, and find it still good : 
 And who is more wise than this band of the 
 
 wood? 
 
 From the vain strife of humans turned gladly 
 
 away, 
 
 I watch them at morn and at dusk of the day: 
 Wishing the world might come to these nooks 
 And see life s best lesson taught clear by the 
 
 rooks! 
 
 183
 
 GREATNESS < 
 
 /~|IVE me the life that animates the Qak, 
 
 Its calm, its depth of spirit and its power ; 
 These, and its constancy would I invoke, 
 Rare things that pass not with the passing hour 
 Whether it be in time of leaf and flower, 
 Or when all life endures the winter s stroke, 
 Nobly it rears its head; a deathless dower 
 Of grandeur aye invests it like a cloak. 
 
 Give me these gifts, and I shall ever fare 
 Untiring, far up toward the longed for height; 
 No more strong, dauntless, in the ^morning air, 
 When all the way^is clear with lucid light, 
 Than when with folded pinions I must bear 
 Along the dreadful gloomed gulf of night. 
 
 184
 
 WAITING 
 
 I IKE something carved in changeless stone, 
 
 she waits 
 
 Outside the city s barred and locked gates. 
 The men who foot the road, pass idly by, 
 Nor deign to turn upon her form an eye. 
 
 In painted face and borrowed trappings, fair, 
 Black Falsehood leers, and laughs upon her 
 
 there ; 
 And murmurs glad, "Nay, none shall know her, 
 
 none : 
 For all their gold, well I my work have done." 
 
 The generations rise, and pause, and go; 
 And still the stream of life flows to and fro. 
 Unmoving, mighty, still her figure stands, 
 With vast, calm brow, and patient folded hands. 
 
 Tis Freedom, the great mother. She is strong; 
 And long can wait, for she has waited long. 
 There is the light of knowledge in her look: 
 She reads the future as an open book. 
 
 185
 
 WAITING 
 
 She knows, howe er their wills the tyrants wreak, 
 That slow their power from day to day grows 
 
 weak; 
 
 That slow the people learn to feel the lie 
 Breathed down to them from those who sit on 
 
 high. 
 
 She knows power s ruthless hand in deeds of ill ; 
 The hand which robs the people, and can kill. 
 She knows when men at last shall bid it pause: 
 She knows when they shall break the lawless 
 laws. 
 
 Sometime, or near or far, the gates within, 
 
 A cry shall rise of dissolution s din; 
 
 And those who scorn her now, will come and 
 
 plead : 
 "We knew thee not ; thou art our leader. Lead !" 
 
 Then that grand shape shall move; and when 
 
 the last 
 The slave s linked chains from off his arms has 
 
 cast, 
 
 She shall be seen there at the leader s post, 
 Before the throng, the head of all the host. 
 
 186
 
 WAITING 
 
 Until that hour she looks, and keeps her peace. 
 While all around the turmoil doth not cease, 
 She feels nor passion nor the touch of hate: 
 Her work inscribed upon the rolls of fate. 
 
 187
 
 "dreams of life shall not be fraught 
 In days to be, as now, with fear and care, 
 But faith and noble trust shall live in thought, 
 And make your musings fair. 
 
 The song of life then none shall make 
 
 Of doubts, of hunger s pangs, or hapless groans, 
 But from fair hope shall human music wake, 
 And joy shall thrill its tones. 
 
 The word of life shall not be said 
 
 In black distrust, in scorn, in craft, or guile, 
 But out of hearts on love s own plenty fed, 
 Your lips shall speak, and smile. 
 
 Your days of life shall not be spent 
 
 In loathed, servile tasks, in pinched distress, 
 But in glad work, glad ease, and calm content, 
 And wholesome happiness. 
 
 188
 
 THE UNSPOKEN 
 
 diamonds in a crucible 
 Alive with fire, and seek to cull 
 Their rainbow flashes beautiful. 
 
 Test roses in their purity : 
 Submit them to some chemistry ; 
 
 Try if they yield their grace to thee. 
 
 
 
 Loose the strings, and break the viol 
 Which knows to make e en sorrow smile, 
 If music s self thou would st beguile. 
 
 * 
 When roses yield what thou hast sought, 
 
 When the jewel s ray is caught, 
 When the charm of sound is wrought, 
 
 Thou shalt come, and with thine art 
 Force the portals of the heart, 
 And bid it all it holds, impart ; 
 
 Then, at last, shall speech reveal 
 Wonders silence now doth seal : 
 Things we only breathe and feel. 
 
 189
 
 HUMANHOOD. 
 
 CLOMETIMES, when I have gazed where sun 
 sets burned, 
 
 Or listened while rich music thrilled the air, 
 The rapture of the hour has made me dare 
 To dream the future world ; and I have yearned 
 To live when human love shall not be spurned 
 In all the earth, when mankind everywhere 
 Shall live in light, its deeds most clean and fair, 
 Its soul erect, the whole of truth discerned. 
 
 But when I look, and see my fellow men 
 Groping in darkness toward the perfect day, 
 Fighting the tiger in themselves, and crime, 
 The thought that I could leave them fades away, 
 And in my heart I clasp this truth again : 
 To love, to strive, to suffer, is sublime! 
 
 190
 
 COMRADES 
 
 /~WER the parting oceans, 
 O er the dividing lands, 
 We call to you, our brothers ; 
 
 We stretch to you comrade hands. 
 
 Why should we strive for bondage ? 
 
 Or war for the warring kings ? 
 If we fight, let us fight for friendship, 
 
 And not for the meaner things. 
 
 Enough of the schemes of empire ; 
 
 Enough of the lusts of trade. 
 Eye unto eye, our fellows, 
 
 And let a new pact be made ! 
 
 The lore of the ages tells it : 
 
 All wisdom s voices call, 
 "Humans, ye stand, together; 
 
 And, each against each, ye fall !" 
 
 191
 
 COMRADES 
 
 We live united in sorrow 
 
 Beneath the powers that destroy; 
 Let us come close together, 
 
 And live united in joy. 
 
 Enough of the bounds and borders ; 
 
 Nay, no life stands alone. 
 Hear, men of the farthest nation : 
 
 We are made of one flesh and bone. 
 
 Away with the fear that parts us ; 
 
 Away with our threatening might ; 
 Shout good speed to us, calling. 
 
 Men of all earth, unite ! 
 
 The world we have made awaits us 
 With all of its goodly gains : 
 
 We have nothing to break but bondage, 
 We have nothing to lose but chains. 
 
 Hope be with us forever, 
 
 And strength, as the sun above. 
 
 The power of our hands be courage, 
 The pulse of our hearts be love. 
 
 192
 
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