•t^ .;; r-f-t'^'^:- ' T. my^u. 'V M^'^^m/i^^m^'^'^'^^ H1E GUERDON ;n A R R THE GUERDON BY HARRY LYMAN KOOPMAN PROVIDENCE THE PRESTON AND ROUNDS COMPANY 1922 Co PYRIGHT, I 92 I By H. L. Koopman THE PLIMPTON PRESS NORWOOD, MASS., U.S.A. TO THE MEMORIES THAT HALLOW MY boyhood's homeland ^72440 CONTENTS PAGB In the Sachem's Seat 1 By the Winter Fire 2 At the Mouth of the River 3 Watching the Haymakers 4 At the Bowdoin Commencement 4 The Launching 5 The Dial of the Ages 6 My Maple 7 To A Little Girl 8 The Return of the Artist 9 Spirit Photographs 10 The Railway Accident 10 The Immigrant's Funeral 11 The Fulfilment 12 Life's Hero 13 The Chariot of Death 14 PAGB God's Lamplighters of Souls . . . . 14 The Death and Birth of a God ... 15 Dragging the Pond 16 The Roman Flamen 16 Stronger than Life 17 Dawn or Dusk 18 Dreams of Strength in Weakness. 19 Love's Exile 20 Wading under the Bridge 20 In the Hospital 21 New-born 23 In Central Park 23 Prothalamium 24 From Far Manhattan Heights 25 Aftersong: the Holy Grail 26 NOTE The scene of the events described is chiefly Freeport, Maine, on Casco Bay. The teller of the story was born evidently near the middle of the last century, suffered his acci- dent at about twenty, and was restored to health at about forty. He may now be sup- posed as a man of three-score and ten to be giving to the press his manuscript already a generation old — a memory out of a bygone world. The " dial of the ages " is the circle marked by the precession of the eqvunoxes, aroimd whose circumference the pole moves once in 25,800 years. The present pole star and Vega are nearly opposite each other, and take their turns at being pole star at intervals of about half this period. THE GUERDON IN THE SACHEM'S SEAT o at length to the top Of this wide-revealing mount I have dragged my helpless form, The same that ages ago, In another life of mine, Tore me away from my rest And dashed up this rocky slope In its furious thirst for toil, In its lust of strength for strife. Strange that memory persists Across this gulf, that I Can think of myself in days That are one to me with the days Of the Pilgrims, the Crusades, The Pyramids, yea, with the past Of him who scratched on the tusk Of the mammoth the shaggy form Of the beast that bore it aloft. All are blent into one. Memory, history, trace, Equally far away; And yet men agree in the tale That only twice has the sun Quickened the earth into life Since I was that embryo self. None of my seeking it is, My life on this side the gulf. To live was the last thing I dreamed. I cried when I leaped from the ice: Here's for luck and the shore! But that was only to hide The reason deep in my heart Why I took the desperate chance; Yet the chance once taken, my strength Put forth a will of its own, And, battling defiant of hope. Flung me at last on the shore. Ten seconds before I leaped Nothing was less in my thought. Then it all flashed over my brain, What before I would not admit, That he was her love, not I. There was life on the ice for but one; Could I blast her life in its bud When a leap would settle all. The longing, the doubt, the ache. When a leap would spare me the pain Of seeing a joy that I willed. Yet a joy that was wrought of my grief? This too it did, in a way That I could not foresee in the breath Between the resolve of my will And the icy clasp of the brine. That was two winters ago, At least as the world reckons time, And out of that watery grave I was born to a death in life. Had it been best — God knows — To have left me prone on the shore Till my numbness hardened to frost, And out of this earthly life I had passed into that beyond? Yea, but I have passed beyond, Through the death of the body I bore, Into the life of the soul. In at that cavern of pain I entered, a savage, a child, A primal faun of the woods, A being with hardly more thought Than the maple that sports with the wind. Forth from its hither door. Wrecked in body, I come. In spirit full-grown, and heir To the thought of the ages foregone. And claimant on all that shall bloom In the infinite springtides of Mind. This wrought Pain for me And the breath of a quickening soul, A great Physician's word. To whom it was given to heal More the spirit within Than the body they laid at his feet. THE GUERDON She, meanwhile, far away, Is happy with him she loves; And I rejoice in the joy That she took unaware from my hand. But her joy may I never behold! For, after all, this is earth. Where grief is the shadow of love. BY THE WINTER FIRE .^/jjrj^AS it only so, I ask, if 11 4 My spirit could come to its own? ^^^"^ Was my soul so deeply immured In its prison of flesh and strength That only through pain and wrack It could burst its way into light? The light had been all around. Illuming me from my birth; It was I that could not see. Some knowledge this earth compels. The knowledge of food and fire. Of clothing and shelter and kind. But there the grannam flags. As if her lesson were taught, And frets if we ask for more. As though that more were the charge Of a higher teacher to give. So from the most she hides That she owns a loftier lore, And babbling we go through life Who should speak as men full-grown, And halting we lag who should press To the bounds of mortal ken. I lay, the past a blight. The future a blank unthought. And Hope long dead and cold In the arms of murdered Love; And I said: When I woke that morn. Why was no warning at hand Of the crash that should bury my life? What is it worth to know If all we can know is the past? As I spoke I became aware Of two that stood by my bed. Said the elder: Wait, and see How souls are bom into life, In pain, as bodies are born. Then, speaking to me, he said: At last the keel of your thought Has run aground on the shoal That limits knowledge on earth. Though his head be stuffed with lore That was old in Babylon's prime, Man's knowledge ends with the Now. He knows not what is to be At the next swift beat of his heart, Nor indeed if again it shall beat. So, in a myriad ways, Even such as he cannot guess, Man's knowledge is bounded and cramped; And all because he is man And can only know what his mind, The tool of his knowledge, is gaged. By the power that shaped it, to know. But be sure that he whose wings Are beating in vain and bruised On the ultimate bound of thought. Though he may not pass that bound, Yet shall return in a strength That is more than the strength of man. As Antaeus, the son of Earth, Sprang up renewed at the touch Of his mother, so man becomes Greater than man if he touch The bound Heaven sets to his flight. For the bound and the touch are of Heaven. Nay, is it too much to say That man then first becomes man And worthy to enter in As heir and son of God When, bafl3ed and sick at heart, He finds that to be man Means to be limited? So saying, he left me alone. Nor waited to answer one Of the thousand questions that leaped To stay him. Open-eyed On the new world of thought revealed, I stared entranced, as one Who has strayed unawares to the brink Of the Canyon's measureless gulf, AT THE MOUTH OF THE RIVER And spellbound, overwhelmed, At the splendor unrolled beyond sight, Wonders if what he sees Be Heaven or its reflex, Hell. Both has it proved to me — Heaven in the sense of power That comes to those who know, And Hell in the impotence Of knowledge confined and caged. Again and often again My wise physician spake — While my body was growing wont To its new and feebler life — To quicken the life of my soul. He showed me how this world Of three dimensions, which seems The only possible world. With length and height and breadth The bounds of all that is, May be at the selfsame time A living and busy world Of more dimensions or less, A myriad even at once, And all as real as our own, And each with its own fixt laws, But each unknown to the rest; How in time our dimension is one, The future drawn out from the past In a single unvarying line, Not the plane of an infinite Now, Not the cube nor a higher power. Where time passes out of itself Into force — who knows? — or will. Such things my physician taught, Leading me by the hand. As one of prisoners twain In the dark might lead his mate To measure the walls of their cell. Thoughts that I never had dreamed. Which at first I could not grasp. He led me on to think, Because he found me, he said, A soul that was ready for birth; And he would, since never again Might I find delight in the strength Of my body, nor toil with my hands, I might find a greater in thought, And bring men gold, he said, Who before had but quarried them stone. AT THE MOUTH OF THE RIVER tmj^g- AST of a worn-out race, ^il The end of a withered branch ^^ That has lagged behind the rest, Stinted and stunted, in me The men of my blood behold A life overleft from the age Of their grandsires, siurviving alone From that generation outworn. Was this the fatal defect. The miser fault of my race. That it hoarded for length of days The force that should have been spent On fulness of life? But this I know at least, that the words Too late! Too late! have rung Life-long the knell of my hopes. Too late was I born to share In the freeing of the slave; Too late to have welcomed death On the field of that glorious cause Overswept by the shining wings Of the Choosers of the Slain. Too late was I born for love, — But let me not wake that chord. Which is anguish. Let it sufl5ce That I have outlived my race. And look back on its course as I might From beyond the portal of death. I know what my counsellor said For my comfort, and were it true Or false, 'twas at least not feigned. He held it the goal of a race. Of a long succession of lives. To produce a single soul; And, its consummation and end Achieved, it has served the will Of the World-soul, and then is free From allegiance to life on earth. Meanwhile, below in the ooze, Overstrewn by the weariless tides, THE GUERDON Lies the gun that I flung from the ice, Ahready crumbUng to rust, The force locked up in its breast Ahready dissolved and lost. Could I then have seen myself now, I had said it had been as well I were stretched by my gun in the slime; But now, from this aery of thought, I look on that life as at one With the life of the worm in the mud; And not for the body's health, For the bounding pulses of strength, Would I sink my soul again To the blindworm in the ooze. WATCHING THE HAYMAKERS ow the tough ash bends with its dome Of chnging, odorous hay. Uplifted to crown the load! The pitcher from wrist to heel Tingles with rapture of strength As the true ash straightens back. He, as he stands half hid. With the fragrance canopied. The treader aloft on the load, The raker gleaning behind. And even the straining team, These are parcel and part Of the only peaceful life Our race has ever known Since man became more than beast. Is it any wonder my will From its prison of weakness yearns To be one with that conquering toil? That the sweet breath of the hay Borne from these fields and down From immemorial fields. Should bear away on its wings Thought and the joy of thought? So from his desolate isle. Through the cloud-rifts of his pain, Looked Philoctetes in thought. Across the sundering deep. To the thronging plains before Troy, Where men, his comrades once. Were winning immortal names In life or more glorious death. Two things alone he had left, His arrows, the gift of the God, And the knowledge that only through him Could victory at last be won; Though how he yet should serve, He, the banished and scorned. He could not conceive in his pain. Year after year roars the fight But the end shall not be from force; The silent shafts of the God Alone can quiet its rage. This is the triumph of thought Over war and the tumult of war. Over din and disturbance of peace, The silent shafts of the God That conquer the world's new day. This battle of battles now joined — Mere prelude was all hitherto — Shall it still have a part for me? AT THE BOWDOIN COMMENCEMENT MDCCCLXXV >^|^ERFECTiON of Summer's morn, — ^a The thought and the will of God tT^ Made real to mortal sense! Around my halting steps The dewdrops flash like gems, Each tiny radiance big With pride of teUing the sun The emerald secret of earth. The sapphire lore of the sky. The birds on bush and spray Are taking Heaven with their storm Of melodious violence. From all its garland of days The year has plucked this one To lay like a rose at the feet Of the men we honor too How scantly with gesture and word! — The men, whom, about to join The Immortals, we mortals hail. Might I have done so unblamed, I had knelt and kissed the hem THE LAUNCHING Of his garment, the singer crowned With the praise of the nations afar, But his home is here in our hearts. O sweet, benignant face! voice of sympathy! That for evermore I shall see, 1 shall hear, while life endures! The ground thy feet have trod Is holy; the singing pines Their own song murmur no more But thine. If prayer has power To enrich a life so blest As thine through blessing glows, Daily, unknown to thee. Mine shall attend thy steps. But not of us who gaze, Nor of them around, the belov'd. Are thy thoughts today; they are given To him, thy companion in fame, As here in study, to him. The star-eyed, thunder-browed. Long since immortalized, Whom we miss today with a pang That darkens the smile of morn. Beneath the spires I pass Into the roseate gloom; But broken today is the sp)ell. For today my thoughts are of man, And how, though born of earth And weighted with earth, being man, Yet, being a son of God, He sets his face to the stars. And chmbing the wall of the sky, Tramples them imder his feet. O sacred spot of earth! Blest be their memory Who cleared thee, who reared thy walls, Who lit thy sacred lamps, And blest forevermore, From grateful age to age. Be they who guard thy shrine! So one who is not of thee. Who never lit his lamp At learning's holy flame, But out of due time was born Into thy world of thought. Prays, as beneath thy elms. He follows their shadows home. THE LAUNCHING iwr- DIP my hand in the brine, 11 And, lo! my pulses thrill '^ With the traffic of the world. This is man's highway, this The road that has no end. But ever returns on itself. Encircling the islands and lands, And binding each to all. Above me, huge and black. Looms the hulk with its pennons and flags, Clear at last of its props. Merry the throng on its deck, But louder they who below With clattering mallets toil Far under the frown of the hull. To set their captive free. The boys have deserted their boats. The fishers their lines, all eyes Even of the lovers, hand-claspt. Are fixed on the towering bulk That now as they gaze awakes From lifelessness into life. The mass is thrilled with a soul; No longer a creature of earth, It puts forth an ocean will, And, spuming its mighty bands, Like Samson rending his withes. It plunges into the flood. The ways are a-smoke with the speed, A vast wave licks the strand. Across the tide comes the roar Of flying cables, and then The hulk that we saw is gone. As if earth had swallowed it up. In its room is a bare, blank space; But at anchor in mid-stream rides A new creation, unkin To aught we beheld before. An Aphrodite, foam-born, Uplifting out of the waves THE GUERDON A subtler grace than their own. Now a line is rowed to the wharf, The capstan clinks, and ere long The ship, alongside the wharf Discharges its holiday load. Ay me! what fate is in store For the ship that is born today? What far sea-paths shall it tread, What fury of waves and wind. What dangers of reef and crag Of icebergs veiled in their fog. Of shoal and current and calm. What rage of sun shall it know, What blinding assault of cold? Shall it traverse the ocean ways Long years for the weal of men, And at last lay its wearied form To rest in some tranquil creek, Or suddenly over its strength Shall fate no skill can ward Descend, and its days be done? But has not a fragment of wreck Buoyed sometimes a precious freight, And borne it safe to its goal? But thine be a happier fate, O new-born child of the sea! Sail thou with kindly trades, On open friendly seas. And many ladings and rich Bring safely home, and safe Thyself in thy beauty and grace! THE DIAL OF THE AGES ^^■■^HE dews of the summer night ilj> Are fragrant around my feet, ^■^ But my eyes are turned to thee, O Vega, maiden star, O snowy pearl of the skies! Thousands of years ago. So many the spirit faints At the awful range of time — Four hundred men in rank, Hand-reaching, sire to son. Scarce bridge the monstrous gulf — The youngest sees thee now Thy mighty circle sweep Through summer's midnight dome. Till under the winter snows, Thy kin in purity, Thou harborest for a space. But the eldest — if he saw — Beheld thee in the north, Enthroned, immovable, While all the glittering heavens, Round thee revolving, thee Adored as virgin queen. He too adored thy face. And hailed in thee the God, Changeless, of earthly change, If thee indeed he saw. But haply he saw thee not. Too close akin to the brute That ever his eye should mark Thy splendor, as yet unskilled To traverse the ocean ways And seek a pilot star, But finding his way on land By scent and lowly sight. Even as his fellow brutes. To such a one, I ween, Yet chill from the whelming ice. And yet adread at the crash Of the mammoth's trampling step. My grasp reaches back through the night. But the awful dial still, Where eons count but hours, Gleams in the mystic north; And again thine hour shall come, Again shalt thou reign the queen Of the congregated stars; And then with what regard Shall man behold thy face? Even in this half-hour gone He has raised his brow from the sod, He has learned thee what thou art. No God, but a blazing sun, And the fuel of thy flame, The heart of thy mystery, His eye hath summed it all, Weighed and measured and proved. And found it nothing strange, MY MAPLE But one with the earthly clods That give him footing and food. But how shall he view thee then} Shall his spirit then have annulled The abysmal depths of space, And exvilt in converse high With the splendid spirits that joy Unbodied, unrestrained. In the light of thy glowing orb? Lord of life and of death, Freed from stains of the brute, As far from us as we From the slant brow sunk to the dust, Art thou real and yet to be, Or only the dream of an age That is now at its highest crest And can only retreat or decline? Shall the brute again win sway, And back through hate and crime, Through darkness hugged to his heart. Shall man sUnk back and hide In the hairy fell of the beast. No longer the lord of life. But, weak and slow, the prey Of the beasts that his lordly sires Hunted for food or sport? No answer thou givest or canst; But whatever the dial shall mark For the doom or the godhood of man. This I know, that, as sure As the face of the heaven shall be changed. New stars climb to our skies And old stars disappear. So shall the face of man And the heart and the life of man Be changed from what they are, As the Soul which is the world. Through the changes of the earth. Through the birth and death of stars, Yea, through the birth and death Of Universes, fulfils For itself and not for man Its lone, eternal will. MY MAPLE ^^•^oiST and cool is thy shade, mtTlI/ -^y Maple, though all around •' *'^*' The cricket shrills in the heat, And the landscape is wavy and blurred Under August's fiery breath. A child, I planted thy shoot, Bringing it out of the woods; With pride I watched it grow. Till at last it o'ertopped my head With its lithe and upright stem. Then a playmate, to tease me, or sheer In wantonness, heedlessness, Or moved by a sudden whim, Drawing his pocket knife. Cut thee down to thy root, And ran off waving thy stem, The plaything of an hour. Had the stone I threw in my rage Found the mark I meant. His cries would have changed their tune. But, rooted in strong, deep soil, Thy life was hardly checked, And soon thy tuft of green Was waving again o'er my head. Slower my growth than thine; Yet I had attained my height When full on thy leafy crown Fell the awful September gale. Thy leaves were torn in shreds And flung afar on the wind. But thou wert safe, I deemed. Next morn a third of thy strength, A mighty limb, lay prone. And a white gash rent thy side. But the life within thy veins Leaped with the pulse of spring, And ere long thy wound was healed. Then we saw that thy grace Had been heightened by the loss, As thy crown, at April's touch, To a perfect oval filled. But that was years ago. And now thou o'ertoppest the waHs That sheltered thee once from the north; And thy crest, as the breezes play, 8 THE GUERDON Lifts now to the sea's blue rim, And now to the far blue hills, The ancient home of thy kin. So wilt thou mount and expand When me and all of my age Thou seest no more in thy sweep. And, it may be, the hundredth year Shall find thee towering aloft When we have long been dust. So let me lie at rest, My only monvunent thou, No stone to bear my name Until it is only a name! But wave thou over my head. The grace of thy slender limbs Etched on the wintry dawn, Thy emerald dome a bower Of melody, June by June, And thyself a funeral pyre For a god each Fall renewed. While the hand that gave thee place Has long been mingled with dust, And the dust to beauty has climbed In stem and bud and leaf. To a life that is one with thine, O Maple, thou joyous child Of the love of Earth and the Sky! TO A LITTLE GIRL ^*^UT of a miUion stars lll^ Our spirits chose this earth ^■^ To be their home in time; And out of a million souls. All designed for love, Our souls choose here and there One to make all their own. What such a springing vine. Radiant with budding bloom, As thou, should find to choose In a shattered trunk like me, I shall not trouble to guess, Too glad to be thy choice. O summer dawn, far flown To gladden a wintry eve, Sweet child, I have grown too wise To ask how long thy love. Like fragrance outpoured, and glad In outpouring, shall be content To waste its treasure on me. Thou art untaught to live Beyond the present, and I Will unlearn my dangerous wont To question the future, and leave Sweet love in its golden hour Assured of eternity. So, dear, give me thy hand, And, while we stroll through the fields. With the eyes of a thousand flowers Upturned for approval and thanks For their beauty and fragrance wrought. We twain will shape earth anew, And people it for ourselves With creatures after our heart, — Fairies, giants, dwarfs. Elves, hobgobUns, gnomes, Brave knights and ladies fair, Castles, enchanted woods, — And all that happens, compel To happen the way we want, And just in the nick of time; And, above all, every heart. Though after long toil and pain. Shall be sure to find its own. We will leave the roses their thorns. But will make their fragrance the more. We will leave the sour that the sweet May be better tasted and prized. Indeed, we will leave the world Much as it is, will we not? If only we two may walk Forever, hand in hand. Through this daisy-sprinkled field. Yes, dear, I believe the world And all that is in it were made For fairies, and surely not The fairies for the world. I for one am glad They let me live in their world. Even if they play me the trick Of keeping out of sight. And laughing behind my back. It is much more charming so THE RETURN OF THE ARTIST Than it would be to Kve in a world Grown-up, where no fairies were. I had rather have for a friend A fairy than a king; Because, whom the fairies love Children love too, and though They may grow old in years, They never grow old at heart, But are children unto the end. Their foreheads never lose The brightness from heaven brought. But below on the earth they live Somehow in heaven still; And when they leave the earth, 'Tis no more than the melting of mist In the sunbeams; it all is there, But has only passed from our sight. So, whatever the years may bring Of beauty or grace or power, Remember to keep firm grasp On the unseen fairy gold. Will it always bring happiness? Better than happiness, lovel THE RETURN OF THE ARTIST IS father and mother we knew. His brothers and sisters are here. Our playmates once and now Our neighbors; we know them all. But him, if once we knew, We know no more; he has passed Out of ovir narrow sphere. And returns to it stranger far Than the wanderer summer brings. Yet he is strange, not strange The soul of the work of his hands. That soul is the soul of us all, Of our lives, our works and days, The soul of our weakness and strength, And the inmost soul of our land And of all its fruits, whereof we Would fain be reckoned the crown. Must he needs pass out of our sphere, To see our life as it is? Must he needs fare oversea. Study in Paris and Rome, View the art of the world In Europe's galleries hung. Learn to speak strange speech, Burn under Libyan suns. Freeze amid Tibetan snows On the roof tree of the world. To understand and depict The life of our little thorp? Yet he never was truly of us. And how among us he came. This bird-of-Paradise Fledged in our Northern croft, A sheen of Tropic flame Amid our dusk and dun, We can only puzzle and guess. But stranger still he retmns. With other habits and speech. With other thoughts and desires, Than of old were his and ours. Though he knows us to the core. We cannot know him; our life Is only a dot on the map Of the world his life has become. Yet, after all, he is ours. His mighty world has grown On a stem that here shot up. AH he has seen and done He has seen and done as the child Of these vales that ope to the sea, These hills that, rounded and low. Remember how once, snow-crowned. They saw, not a shoal green sea. But the blue of the central deep. I too am a child of these vales; And I have fared farther than he. I have held the world in my hand And have spumed it for dizzier flights Than ever Mercury dared. As he from oiu: village passed. So I, from our village of earth, Have traversed the Universe, Yea! passed beyond its bounds To the Universe of Thought; Have there lived citizen; The speech of the dwellers there Have I learned, and, returning here. lO THE GUERDON I am more unknown than a stray From Afric or Indian wilds. Peace! Peace! we are children both, Trying to mirror God's world Each in a dusky flake Of mica chipped from the rock, Seeing each his tiny glimpse And fancying it the whole. When all the broken glints Of a myriad seers are joined, Perchance we shall see the whole; — But, haply the whole is more. In this Universe of Soul, Other and vastly more, Than the sum of all its parts. Their product, not their sum. SPIRIT PHOTOGRAPHS o he has gone to his rest, My neighbor of many years. The lawyer, keen of mind. Sturdy of will and work, And strong of soul to bear The rudest buffets of fate. Far from fearing death. He hailed its coming with joy, For with all his heart he believed. With all his mind and might. That it came to lead him forth Where he should clasp again The darling child of his youth, And the wife of his youth and age. Yet his buoyant faith was the fruit Of a cheap and barefaced fraud, Such as in mart or court He had been first to scoff, — Spirit photographs! A weak and silly trap For dull and ignorant minds. How caught it a mind hke his? But, for once, he was off his guard, And his heart, enlisted, veiled The piercing eyes of his mind, And gave superstition rein To bear him whither it would; So a mountebank's lie Bore him smiling to death. Shall we say then, Blessed be fraud! No, and forever, no! Rather than trust false lights On life's uncharted sea. Where the mists forever shroud Its meeting with the Beyond, Give me — I ask no more — The true if scanty tale Which Reason's plummet tells. And the log of day to day; — Unless I may be of those. The blest, illuminate, Whose eyes, immortal of range. Pierce the sable of death Even as the azure of life. THE RAILWAY ACCIDENT /JH^NDER my willow I sat, QB On an August afternoon, In the shade of its whispering orb, As a maple's round and dense. Far off in silver flashed The smoke of the coming train. That should thunder over its track Before me across the field. But my thought was away from earth, Out of space and time. Clenched with the thought of him, The God-intoxicate, Who taught that the will of man Its only freedom finds In obedience to the law Of its being, and has no power To stray outside its bounds. Not that when it goes right It obeys the law, and wrong When it disobeys; it moves — Here the roar of the train Brought back my thought to earth — Even as j^onder train, On its track or not at all. Was it a prescience of thought, A moment's outrunning of Time THE IMMIGRANT'S FUNERAL II ^ In my soul, or only chance? For scarce had I pictured the shock Of the train derailed, when a thrill Shot through its lithe, swift length, A grinding crash smote my ears. One car staggered out of the line And sank aslant in the sand; Then all the mighty mass Shuddering, stopped awry. Out of the hush, rose a groan, Then screams, and forth from the cars Came pouring their human freight. With what poor speed I might, I hurried across the field To the scene that I feared was of death, Nor far astray was my fear; For stretched on the bloody grass. With a crushed and bleeding leg, Lay a brakeman, his ashen face Distorted with pain and dread. The crowd made way for me. As to one who bore the mark Of the Brotherhood of Pain. I took the sufferer's hands, While a surgeon, by chance on the train, Wrought, with rough tools fetched From a farmer's work-bench, to save The life that was fleeting fast; Wrought without drugs to still The torture of knife and saw. At last the torment ceased. And then it was mine to do ^ What word and touch might avail To make the spirit supply The body's lack of strength. So it endured for an hour. While the passengers made a purse For the sufferer, be it for him Or only for wife and child. Then they lounged impatient about Till another train should be sent. At last it came, and my charge I resigned with many fears, That were founded only too well, For ere he had reached the town And the arms of help and love, He died. And so the flower Which had struck its roots into earth Suddenly burst into bloom In the life beyond, and sloughed The stem by which alone It was known to our earthly sense. But sometimes it seems to me. Who have been uprooted so far That I feel I draw less from earth Than from ether, it seems to me That the life around and above Overflowing into our lives Is more to us, hourly more, Although unrecognized. Than this of brawn and health. Which boasts its scantiness The universal whole. THE IMMIGRANT'S FUNERAL ^jm^'SLKT he ever wandered here ill. From the pale skies of the North, ^"^ From his ruddy Gothland kin. Whose speech so clung to his lips, With its music of forest bells, That they took but haltingly ours, — That he ever came among us, EngUsh in name and speech. In habit and prejudice, As in any Midland thorp, Here in our unknown town On the granite coast of Maine, — 'Twas not the quest of gold. Nor the Northman's quest of the sun, But the quest of learning. So here, A student in our schools. Albeit older than most, A laborer in our fields. He wrought, and won our regard, 'Till his speech and ways began To blend and be lost in ours. But one fact he reckoned without, One danger had not foreseen. He had come from a colder air; And something in our own, Bred by oxir lustier sun, 12 THE GUERDON Sapped the rugged strength He had drawn from Berserk sires. We scarce had missed him from school, When we learned with a shock of pain That death already had set Its mark on his cheek and brow. The little that friendship might It wrought with eager haste, But all in vain; and now A few short weeks have brought This tolling of the bell This gathering of young and old To the Immigrant's funeral. Of all illusions on earth, The strangest is after fame. The charm of living fame Is easy to understand; 'Tis a man leaning over a pool Seeing his face in its depths. But the thought of fame after death. To one who has missed it in life, Is to lean o'er a muddy pool And think: It is roily now, But, when I am gone and it clears. Those who come after shall see The face it ought now to reflect. The image to him who has gone, Even though it were, is not; And, if by a miracle It abides, the wonder is oxirs. Not his who has passed away, And cannot know it abides. Yet, if memory have a worth, How many toil life-long To win it, and gain far less Than this wanderer did by chance! Because he came from afar, Because he was not like us, Because untimely he died. We therefore remember him; And three-score years from now Grey-haired ancients will point To the hollow that marks his grave, And say, I knew him in life, And tell his story afresh. What more do conquerors gain? To me appeals not fame, Living or after death. Fame is only for them Who live in time. As for me, Alive in eternity, The heaven that spans life's pool, I need no reflex of time, — No more than he needs now. For whom the church bells toll — To teach me that I live. THE FULFILMENT (^(jjrt/^HEN in the frosty breath fl i|~| Of the interstellar abyss ^^^^^ A swirl began to form, Outspake the soul of the world To the soul of the universe: Is this my life foretold. Is this the Fulfilment to be? But the other answered: Wait! The beginning only is this. When the whirling had advanced Till the whole as one huge disc On its cloudy axle swung, Again the question came, And again the answer: Wait! Then slowly the center shrank. Leaving a slender rim. And again it shrank, and again, Till the mass revolved, not as one, But in rings of cloud and void. Then out of the center came A wonder which was Light, And the radiance touched the rings Each with its dawning hue. Then the world-soul cried: At last The Fulfilment is at hand. But the greater said: Not so! Then, one after one, the rings. Breaking, roUed into orbs, That round the central light. Where once the rings had whirled. Wheeled in their circling dance. Each with its flamelet crowned. Then the world-soul cried: Enough! My being is sated and thrilled. LIFE'S HERO 13 But the universal soul, Smiling, answered: Wait! Then shrank the central orb. And the circling cressets paled. The world-soul gazed with rue. But the other bade it look On the third of the lesser orbs. Already its Ught was gone, And forever half in night It rollttl through the central glow. But, lo! from pole to pole, It was bathed in a silver flood. It was mantled with living green. Then the soul of the world rejoiced And cried: I see; 'twas for this, The crown of their long desire. That out of the primal mist The circling orbs were whirled. But the other answered: Wait! Then above the green outflashed Wings of a mjoriad dyes. And above their splendor, song. Cried the world-soul: This is the end! But the greater answered: Look! Then mighty strengths appeared. Lording with bulk and brawn O'^ earth and sea and sky. Then upon either pole Fell a touch from the hand of frost, And it widened and sunward spread. The verdurous mantle shrank. And shrank the mighty strengths. Then the world-soul cried: Alas! The end even now begins. And yet the Fulfilment waits. But its leader answered: Hark! And up from the forest's depths, From arms of weakness arose Out of lips of weakness a cry. And the soul of the universe To the wondering world-soul spake: Lo! the Fulfilment is here. LIFE'S HERO -jBTj^jTM^HO is Life's hero? He if If T^ Who braves the cataract's whirl At the call of weakness for help. Who treads the haunts of the pest, Who toils over arctic ice, Who breasts an unknown sea. Its demons, its gxilfs of death. Who faces taunt and sHght For the sake of a noble cause, — Heroes all, who make Earth The better that they have dared. But a greater hero I know. 'Tis he, who rending away All tendrils of faith and trust, Fears not to set himself Against God's universe. To eye it, question it, Test its heart by its deeds, And finally decide If it be worthy or not For him to trust and love. This is the greatest feat. So great that its doer becomes An antitheos, the man Alone of all mankind Whose love or hate can be Worthy of God's regard. No such hero am I. If ever I could have been once, I have lost forever the power. Nor now regret the loss. Mine is too deep a sense Of the universal good That I can impartially judge Betwixt his maker and man. So much God's man am I That if I knew his good Involved my ill, as indeed, I believe it may, I should feel That still it was better so, Better even for me. As having a larger share In God than in myself. 14 THE GUERDON THE CHARIOT OF DEATH TILL, though the heart accepts, |The mind refuses to bow. To see as well as to feel It demands; and, if all is well In the universe of God, Then let the good stand forth Solid and firm, and the ill Be dearly revealed its shade. Devoid of substance and strength. But, look! the mind exclaims. Whose is the chariot That scours forever the earth. Whose are the trampling steeds, The grinding wheels, and the scythes From the axles cruelly curved, Whose, indeed, but Death's? He it is wields the lash, And he it is who laughs At the terror that runs before And the devastation behind. The world is belted and bound By his bloody tracks; itself Is but his playground and park, Its children merely his prey. But whom bears Death behind? Cries the heart. Behold, and say Who sits in the chariot aloft And gives the word of command? You call it the chariot of Death, But only the driver is he. The servant, the slave, the tool, Of him whose own it is. And he is — Progress. The earth Is another and nobler earth Wherever his wheels have crushed, Wherever his scythes have mown. And ever out of his track Rises a grander life; So that the course of Death Appears his punishment And not his triumph. The fruit Is his who masters death; And he gathers it for the weal Not of Death but of Life. Yea, but, the mind responds, Why should not Life himself Be his own charioteer? Why slay that Life may prevail? Why sin that good may be born? But seest thou not, says the hearty Seest thou not that Death Has power but over his kind? It is only death that he slays; He holds no power over life. It is only the death amid life That he can take to himself. And again and yet again The lesser death that remains. Over life he has no power. And when at last he has slain All that belongs to death By primal heritage From chaos and ancient night. Whence life and light were born^. Then shall he slay himself. And Progress, reaching its goal, Shall mount its eternal throne And sit revealed as God. GOD'S LAMPLIGHTERS OF SOULS^ OMETIMES in my weakness I think — • Be it the ebb's last wave Or the first of retxirning strength — That I have in myself the power To create, myself to dart Winged words that shall blaze From their very speed, nor flame A barren wonder and show, But, kindling the hearts of men, Shall age to age transmit The fire that burns in my heart, — To be poet, to be in God's world His lamplighter of souls. Then my sober sense returns. And I know that I mistook For the poet's God-given fire Some poet's enkindling touch. No, let me be content With the happier, humbler lot THE DEATH AND BIRTH OF A GOD IS Of tending the sacred fire, Of making it live in my heart, Of raying its vital warmth. Unto some God gives the power To create, unto some to enjoy; Unto those the grander doom, Unto these the more enviable. So let me be content — Rather let me rejoice — That his love bestowed on me, Not the gift to copy his work, But to see it and find it good; Not to rival the copyists, But to see and applaud their work, And rejoice in their gift divine. Through all the portals of sense Troop the heralds of God's grace; Not mine to bring their report; 'Tis enough for me to stand by And applaud the message brought. For a single herald can serve Hundreds of listeners; And when the heralds are sent. The heralds with signet and wand, Other our services are, Each his own, and all In God's true-seeing eye, Equal in honor and worth. THE DEATH AND BIRTH OF A GOD ^^■■^HE death and birth of an age 4f|v Are the death and birth of a God. ^"^ The generations of men, Like the generations of leaves, Follow each upon each, Seemingly without end. But at last the tree itself Falls, and the leaves that toss Are burgeon of other boughs. So the generations of men Follow so long in line That the memory of none Goes backward to the time When any faith was held. Any God was adored. Save only those whereof each Has learned at his mother's knee. But behind all trees and Gods Are working growth and decay; And a generation comes Which in its own time sees The passing of its God, The advent of a new. Then life, which had lost its hope. And bitter and brackish had grown In the shrinking of its tide, That grey and sad had become In the twilight of its faith, Suddenly flushes with hope. Dawns into youth, and swells Full-flooded with sweetness and strength. Or, it may be, between the death Of the old God and birth of the new, A generation or more Must pass in the Night of the Gods. It never knew the old. Or only as memory, Never as living force; And it cannot foresee the new. Nor know if the new shall be. That generation is mine, A barren rock between Two flowering meadows, a hush, Deathlike and dread, between Two bursts of jubilant song. But at least the grievous time Holds a reward for those Whose hearts in silence feel The steps of the coming God Before from his viewless cloud He bodies himself to men. Yea, great is their reward Whose faith has vanquished night. Who, meeting amid the gloom, With sacred joy confer. And gaze together aloft, Wondering in what guise And when their God shall appear. i6 THE GUERDON DRAGGING THE POND ^I^NE autumn afternoon \§fy Through the village a rumor ran - A whisper at first and at last An uproar — that Imogen, The loveliest of our girls, Sweetest and fairest of all, Shrinking, yet quick of mind, The soul of purity. Had drowned herself in the pond. There seemed no question of chance, For her steps led down to the brink, Her hat was tied to a bough. And on it was pinned: Good-bye! Forget me; you cannot forgive. Imogen. On the shore Her mother paced up and down, Stretching her hands to the pond, Demanding back her child. And calling on us for help. Hope we felt there was not; But, to do what could be done. What must be done before The mother's cry could be stilled, Four of us took a boat. Two to row and one To manage the dreadful drag, While my part was to steer. It was early evening now. The light of the moon fell slant On the emptiness of the pond. But it gave us light enough, More than enough for our fears. For an hovir and another hour We toiled; the moon went down, And the flash of our oars gleamed white As the face we feared to see. At every halt of the drag On rock or sunken log. Our hearts within stood still. Then a call came out of the dark: Come ashore; she is found. Found 1 but alive or dead? We questioned, soon to know. They told us that Imogen Had been seen that afternoon, In the next town, taking the train For the city; with her went A salesman but too well known. Glib and persuasive of tongue. Showily dressed, polite, Attentive to women, and masked With a semblance of chivalry, To which his words before men Gave doubly damned the lie. Her father already had gone To catch the flying express In anxious pursuit; for him There was something to do; but, at home. The mother sat in her chair. Older by many years. Swaying forward and back And moaning: Had she but died! Would God she lay dead at my feet! THE ROMAN FLAMEN OME said he was marked from birth For the flamen's holy task. Such reverence for sacred things He ever showed, such bent For brooding on human life. On death and what follows death. And the meaning and purpose of all. Others, the worldings, said, Between a sneer and a sigh: Not so! It is plain to see He is not of us, but as plain He is also not of you. He is too earnest, and rates Life at too great a worth Either to throw it away Or to barter it with the Gods For a better life to come. He thinks in his innocence To be flamen means to have scope To work out his heart's desire In the welfare of other men. He is bound to make the attempt; The outcome will be what it shall. STRONGER THAN LIFE 17 So he took up his task And wrought. Ten years he toiled, Giving daily his life for men, And questioning not the lore That he took and taught for the truth. Then a light appeared in the east, And a rumor ran through the world Of the Crucified, who had risen From death into deathless life. Proclaiming salvation to men From death and the fear of death By living as He had hved. One with the God over all, Whom He taught men to name Our Father. Most men scofifed, Or laughed at the whole as a jest. But the reverent called on the law To stamp out the blasphemy. The reverent, led by their priests, All but the flamen, who, lost To reverence, reason, and grace. Dared to proclaim: Whom we Under various forms and names Have worshipped as the divine. Behold this day revealed! Yea, at the altar he stood And published this heresy. Did any believe him? Not one. They tore oflF his fiamen's robe And drove him with sticks and stones From the altar he had profaned. In vain he sought to return. Pleading, defending; in vain He showed the fruits of his life And the fruits of his fellows' Uves, Justice, temperance, love; The world would have none of him. Then his mind began to give way — The judgment of Jove, men said — Speech faUed his lips of fire And the thought behind the speech. Babbling at last, like a child. He was led away from men's sight, And he died already forgot By those who had known his prime. But the misbelieving few Remembered him; and now, After two thousand years. He is worshipped as a saint, With a day in the calendar, And the children of those who scoffed Are proud to bear his name. What are the words I have said? No Roman flamen was he — No flamen wrought ever so, Bore such a burden of souls — But the friend of my youth, and he died Only today. The rest Is true, or will be true. STRONGER THAN LIFE ^ou do not love this child, This little innocent, Uplifting to yoiu: face Her mother's very eyes? No! for she stole away My Anna from me. No! Let me never see her again! A purblind god is Love, Or lazy, or mischievous; At least, among all the pairs That he mates on earth, how few Image the perfect love! But in George and Anna we saw. With a glow at the heart, that Love Had here wrought his perfect work. Not merely for them but for us The old world was new-born. When we saw them side by side Earth seemed no longer a place For hate and wrong and sin. Failure and tears, but a place Where the rational, natural Business of every one Was to love and be loved in turn. THE GUERDON It was good to be living then; And one who thought could see That it mattered not so much On whom the blessing fell As that it fell, for its glow Was diffused on all around. By and by their joy Gave promise that ere long It should receive its crown. Then, while we waited all In glad expectance, there feU The dreadful news that the life Born of their love had come At the cost of the mother's life. So, when they showed him his child, Thinking the silent plea Of its beauty and helplessness Might win his heart from its grief, He tmned away and refused Ever to see it more. Time, which heals all griefs, Will heal even his, we said. But idly, not knowing him. One October afternoon. When out of frost and fire Flamed beauty by summer unguessed. He went with a friend to hunt, A friend who hoped that the air And the sport might change his mood. But the friend returned alone. To tell the terrible tale Of the accident that had slain His companion. Then we knew, Though we spoke it with bated breath. That his love had been stronger than life. And, when on a sudden he saw A portal ready to ope Into the world beyond Whither his Anna had passed, He had dashed it open wide. This tale of love, when the woods, Under October's gold, Are red with the blood of the year. Is the tale they tell to me. DAWN OR DUSK? mNDER a cold grey light Our shivering instant we flit. Poor motes! and then are gone. Not long enough we abide To be sure of the low-hung gleam Whether it waxes or wanes. Is herald of dawn or of dusk. Could we compare the light That our farthest sires beheld With the seeming-changeless glow That is light of the world we share. Could we compare them and see Which is more and which less. We might be sure, but, alas! We cannot see with their eyes. And the witness they bear is twain. Oh! were there only an art To tell the east from the west! But we know not whither we face, Toward the east of a dawn delayed. Toward the west of gathering dark. Heaven grants us no sign, And Earth, if it hearken, is dumb. Say not that it matters not. So short is our moment of life. Whether the coming change Be toward the day or the night, That only our far-off sons And not ourselves it concerns. Can it be to us little care If we are children of light Or of darkness; whether our world Lies in the hollowed hand Of the Lord of Life or of Death; That the being we transmit Is a glorious heritage. Or only a loss and reproach? But, of one thing I am sure. If our Lord be the Lord of Life, He would never have set us a task. Given us a problem to solve, Beyond our powers; and my faith Tells me that someone some day Shall discover a mystic power Hiding in veins of the earth, DREAMS OF STRENGTH IN WEAKNESS 19 That shall tell us east from west, And settle once for all Whether we face the dawn As far-off ancestors Of the glorious children of Day, Or whether, nearing the end Of a djdng race, we leave To our children less and less Of living light and warmth, — And God is not in his world. Or has left it, and in his place The power that is all He is not. The principle that destroys Even now is ascending His throne. But a whisper has come to me That even so we can choose, And even in the Devil's world Need not be the Devil's men. That ours is the wondrous lot, The startling privilege, To be, in a world of doubt. Or a world of evil confessed. By our own triumphant choice The children of God. And so. Though it matters whether our light Be^of the dawn or the dusk, Its import is not supreme. Yea, greater worth may we win Who choose in the blindness of doubt That, whether the world we see Be of the Light or the Dark, We are the children of Light, On whom the Dark has no power, For whom the Night is as Day. DREAMS OF STRENGTH IN WEAKNESS eVER since that morn when I Twenty long years ago. To weakness, powerlessness, My waking seK has known But all too well its plight. Not so my slumbering self. The doer of my dreams. That self is always strong. And seems to take delight, woke, More than in years of health, In deeds of daring and toil. Again o'er winter snows, A dozen glowing miles. O'er wooded hills, down dales, I chase the crafty fox; Or over the starlit ice, On ringing skates I fly, Outspeeding aU my mates, Leaving woods and hills behind. All but the following stars; Or at sea in a fishing smack, Mid the equinoctial's roar, I grasp the tiller alone. While the waves are torn to smoke; Or on the playground again I drive the whirling ball Far over the fielders' heads, And speed round the bases home. Such were my dreams for years; But now they have changed their type. 1 now strain other powers In that twilight world of sleep. 'Tis the mind I am using now, The voice before questioning crowds. The pen, for a million to read. I, who can hardly stand. Am grappling with the world, Hammering the stubborn thought On the anvil of the mind; And all in the eyes of men. And finding it nothing strange. Here is a problem to solve: Why should my slumbering self Suddenly take this turn? Is it self-assertion of powers. That are robbed of their rightful scope, In the one world where they can act? Or can it be prophecy Of deeds I am yet to do? O veriest dream of all! Dreams are true but in dreams. O Philoctetes, here Our fates part company; Thine to take up thy life 20 THE GUERDON Even where it was broken off, And carry it high and far Into fields of glorious deeds, Into honors and rich rewards. More than thy youth foresaw. But of thee the world had need, Sole hope of thy land wert thou. Yea, Heaven itself stooped down. And healed thee by miracle To do thine only work. O Philoctetes, thy years Of weakness were only ten; Mine have been twenty. Ah! me. Long since parted our fates! LOVE'S EXILE y^Bf^HE ground I thought so firm il|.Has crvmibled beneath my feet, ^"^And now I no longer go With face upturned to the sky. Communing with sun and stars, But threading hollow ways. Underground, sunless, dark. And lighted only by pale Phosphoric gleams, which flit, Aimless, lost, as I. For at last I know my life Robbed of life's chief prize. Its consmnmation and crown. No love of one for all. No love for truth or right Or beauty can ever fill The place of the love for one And the love by one returned. This my life has lost, Be it by fate or fault. O little mother, who died In my boyhood, but thrice my age, And younger than I am now. In thy life was no room for thought, But only for love and its deeds. How richer far than mine Was thy life in its scanty span! While I have been grasping at stars Through my fingers have slipped unmarked The golden sands of love. Had I not been born for love, I had never felt my loss. My cup had stood full-brimmed, Being shallow; Love could not have poured, Because there had been no room. But my cup is still at ebb, And Love has passed me by. Whatever other worlds May bestow, of this be sure. They never can give what I miss. Earthly love on this earth. What can I do? — Endure! It is nothing, I know, but at least It is not to yield, not to play A coward's part in the face Of the myriads whose doom I share. I can endure to the end, — For not so long will it be — Wondering at my doom. And wondering if the law Of eternal balance can reach So deep into human fate. As, here or anywhere. To a heart that for love was born, ^ To make good the loss of love. So, in these underground ways. Because it is I who grope And not my fellows alone, My faith has shrunk to an If! But time, at least give me time! Or must eternity join In solving a riddle like this? WADING UNDER THE BRIDGE 'mfg- AST night renewed the dream ^n. That I had long years ago ^^ When I sank in the clutch of the frost, A-swoon on the wintry .shore. Was it because in the day I had wandered down to the bridge, And peered through the chilly bore I had traversed in daring and dread IN THE HOSPITAL 21 As a boy, and traversed again In the icy dream of my swoon? But this was the dream that retvirned, Only with newer forms And voices at its close. I was coming home from school, A child with books and slate; When I came in sight of the bridge I remembered the morning's taunt That I durst not wade its length, Under the granite vault And the vast embankment above. O'er which went thundering the trains. Barefoot and scantily clad, For this was in summer's heat, I was ready on my resolve To dare the grisly attempt. Into the stream I stepped. Where it entered the shadowy arch; The chill of the wave and the air Smote on me both at once. Far ahead I saw. Beyond the dark and the chill, A narrow ring of light. My dared and distant goal. The walls were oozy- wet; Here and there from the roof Blunt, white stalactites hung. Ghostly, corpse-like things. That made me shudder and look To see if my exit were free, As if the vault were a tomb. How the chill of the shallow stream I was wading mid-leg deep Shot upward to my heart! I stole a backward glance: The openings were equal now; I was half-way through the bore. Larger and brighter grew The welcome arch in front; And into the hollow roar Of winds and waves in the vault. Which seemed to my childish sense To be gathered about my head, There came the sweeter sound Of laughter and merry shouts. Which grew with the growing arch, With the brightening of the vault. At last from under the stones I stepped, with a gasp of relief, Into the golden sun — Was it ever so golden before? — Under the infinite dome Of the sapphire summer sky, And before me on the bank My playmates, a joyous band, Were gathered; but only those — Yet it seemed to me not strange — Who earlier or later had passed Out of life and mortal ken. How many tears they had cost! How foolish had been the tears! For were they not all alive, And ninning to greet me now? Then as I sought the shore, I saw beyond them a group Of their elders; among them one Was hastening to meet me; her face, A beaming splendor of love, — My mother's! Forward I sprang To meet her; but a voice Cried: It is not yet time! And I felt myself caught in the grasp Of a mighty hand; and then I was back on the other side. And, still compelled by the hand, I bent for my books and slate, — And I woke. Is it not yet time? Is there something for me to do, Which has waited all these years? Of all the heart's restraints What is so hard to bear As the baffling veil that hides To-morrow from to-day? IN THE HOSPITAL ^qyGAiN within these walls, ^I Whereout I passed aglow, ^"^ New-born to the life of Mind! Long ago in years. That hour was ages ago In thronging harvests of thought. 22 THE GUERDON But a few short months at the most, I said, and the fiery flame Of the lamp of my thought will consume The wreck that upbears its glow. I had never dreamed to outlive My delight in the gains of thought, Nor indeed that it could be outlived. Nor had I outUved it, but found That it sated not all my soul. That behind it upgrew a will Hungering and struggling to do, A will that, caged and J^ound In weakness, I could not appease, A will that was also to love, Which darkened my sky till the cloud That should have watered life's field Seemed ready in ruin to burst. It wrung from my lips the cry: This golden fruit of Thought They gave me to balance my loss, Is only an empty rind! Why not throw all away, Life and Thought and Pain, And take your chance with the Void, Rather than live bemocked By thought and impotence? Was I in my world of Mind Doomed after all to live Cut off from life's chief end, Which thousands of years ago The Stoic slave declared To be, not the loftiest Thought, But Action, and severed no less From life's supremest joy. Which also can never be Thought, But only Love? Be it so; At least let me face the truth! So my inward strife Endured for weeks and months, And still my insurgent will Grew more imperious. And more rebellious my heart. Then, like a star out of noon. Came a word from beyond the years Of my knowledge and my pain. 'Twas my great Physician who wrote: When I gave you back to life, I had no power to bestow Strength with the life restored; Power unto life was mine, Not unto vigor and health. But now, so much has man Wrested from Nature's grasp, That I dare believe my art Sufficient to give you at last The strength you have missed so long. But, should I fail, the risk Is not your present life With its measureless riches of thought, But death even under the knife. The chances are even; be yours The choice, be mine the attempt! Choice! My will upleaped To embrace the danger; and now I am lying on this bed. And a few short hours will tell If this be all and the end. Or life begins here anew. I had never dreamed that the sight Of the city could be so fair As it sparkled and shifted and shone, When yestermorn my eyes. From the stately steamer's deck. Sought almost in vain To discover the old I had known Under the mountainous new. My heart leaped up with a thrill, As the city's empire unrolled. That I might bear a part In the giant tasks of its toil! Then I thought of the knife, and a chill Caught at my heart, but I said: One chance in two is mine For a part in that glorious life. Welcome the risk! But now, When Fate seemed even of hand. Came a trial unforeseen. I had just renewed in mind My welcome of the risk, When a glow flashed through my heart, Which I deemed forgotten of love, And a voice above me said: NEW-BORN 23 Is there aught I can do for you? I looked, as one caught in the sweep Of an avalanche, might look On a hidden treasure laid bare. Even as I raised my eyes A sweet new trouble dawned In the eyes that bent over mine; I answered: Only this, — Come tomorrow and ask If I am alive or dead. Then I turned my face to the wall; And strange tears burnt my lids. NEW-BORN *l^ ACK again in life, l^a Which long ago I resigned; " - New-born at forty years. Rich in experience Of thought and suffering, The lore of the ages mine. And the world outspread at my feet, Its paths all open now. But none can I ever tread With the care-free step of youth. Yet^ since from me through pain Age took the years that were youth's Perchance in these latter years My youth shall find me again, A youth of soberer pulse And steadier eye, but strong And fiery hearted to drive The plowshare of manhood's will Through the fallow fields of the world. A way to the mouth of hell From heaven's very gate The dreamer saw long ago. But roads lead either way. And up from the mouth of hell It must lead to heaven's gate. Three roads a man may tread Either to heaven or hell, — Of Thought and Pain and Love. Happy is he whose face. When his feet on either are set, Is turned the upward way That leads him toward the Divine. But why this lot I won, When another, who started with me, Worthier seeming than I, Followed the hellward path And is lost; that is to me Mystery of mysteries, All three of the roads have been mine: From the crowded highway of Pain I passed to the sparely trod, Star-seeking trail of Thought, Which now on a sudden is crossed By the bowery, music-thronged. Level pathway of Love. I had no power to choose; Ere I knew it my way was changed; And now I wonder if Thought In another twenty years Had brought me so near the Divine As Love in a single hour. One thing I cannot tell, — If the way of Love to the end Shall be mine, or again I must tread Alone the summits of Thought, And alone I must finish my course Mid the awful silences Under the silent stars. So be it! but this I know. The very silence will ring With the music of the soul On this way of Love set free. Which never more shall be stilled In life or the sequel of life. IN CENTRAL PARK CAN it be possible That half a hundred years Have so transformed our life That Webster, though in bronze, Looms not a leader of men, A master of eloquence. But only as some vast shape. Half sunk in Egyptian sands. Majestic, sorrowful, 24 THE GUERDON And haunted still by strange Memnonian melodies? This is our world, not his, Ours while we have the strength To make it ours, not ours To seal and stamp our own. Had it not been ever so, Today had been his, not ours, Nay, rather, the Puritan's, The cave man's, the primal ape's; For, save as the present dies In the act of becoming the past, Alone can the future be born. So in the leafy park. In the fragrant summer eve, We walked, and so we talked — I talked — then she began: One thing I demand to know, Which you have never explained. Why, when you asked me to come Next day to inquire for you, And when I faithfully came, You coolly sent me away To come again in a week! Was that your gratitude? And don't you confess that it showed Forgiveness beyond your desert When I came at the end of the week? And overcame it: I willed To hve under ether and knife To win back my health, and win More than life and health. I seized her hand, and urged. Do you understand me now? She veiled her starry eyes. But left her hands in mine. Had I let you stay that morn, I added, the step of Love Would have shattered the House of Life, And Love is of life not death. But now the walls are firm, The doors are open wide, Shall he not enter? I gazed. For the lips to curve into speech, For the long-lashed eyes to lift And look the answer I sought; When, lo! on the lids two tears Were welling into birth. Only this I recall, — Two kisses brushed them away. And on that evening no more We spoke of time and change; And the stars — I can see them still — For very gladness beamed, As soul in soul we passed Into the newer life. Must I explain? I said. Yes, I will explain — for she shrank From something in my tone. Would you have undone all The good that you did? You came Like a messenger out of the life I was risking my life to find. You came as a part of that life, Sent as a pledge by fate. To comfort me and sustain When I entered the shadow of death; Or was fate, which had mocked me so oft. Mocking me unto the end? How should I know? The doubt Chilled like a foretaste of death. But, at last, ere the trial came, My spirit grappled the doubt. PROTHALAMIUM ^gjriijwp^HEN at last I sought my room 0lil«^ On that fateful night of nights, ^^^^^ Her kiss yet warm on my lips, I laughed and said: Come, Death, Whenever thou wilt, thou shalt find Thy battle already lost! Mine is the victory Over thee for evermore, Won through my champion. Love. I, who so long was held Aloof from the life of men, Seeing their loves and hates Dimly as in a glass. Helpless to lift a hand In their labors or their strife, FROM FAR MANHATTAN HEIGHTS 25 Or as one marooned on an isle Across a narrow strait, Foaming, not to be swum, Which bars him for evermore From the life that his fellows live, So I have lived apart. And, turning my face to the stars. Have sought the communion there That I missed on earth; but now Love has come down from their depths, And, bearing me on his wings, Has reunited my life To the living life of the world. The Eternal, imto whose thought I strove to uplift my own, And who gave me the answering sense Of mind attuned to mind Across the immensities, Hath answered no less the cry My heart upraised to the stars, And hath sent not merely the glow That entered into my heart, Speaking peace to my soul. But another life hath he sent To bring, yea, be unto me His breathing, living love. Do you wonder I laughed at Death. The shadow, whose retreat Marks the progress of Life? For I am no longer one. But am bound with a living bond To the heart of the Divine, And am not of small concern In the imiversal scheme. For Infinitude in its sweep Hath taken thought of me, And its pledge, behold! is my Love! FROM FAR MANHATTAN HEIGHTS v%^YRiADS of years ago, jJxTI ^^ ^^^ island, Alpine snows •' Upsoared into simimer's blue. But rain and frost and sun Throughout the eons at work Have worn them down almost To the lapping of the tides. Now man uprears in their room His moimtains of iron and stone, — Say rather, his Babel towers. Warring in purpose and speech. Which, instead of lifting him up An equal with the gods, Make him their laughing-stock, Yet haply are promise and pledge Of a greatness he yet shall achieve. On the highest of these this morn. Under a sky as blue As ever smiled on the snows, For an hour we have taken our stand. Ere we go down to be one With the insect swarm on the ground. What shall we be down there? Here, on this height serene, In this angle of shining sea And teeming land, we are. We can be, but ourselves, — How shall it be below? What was the travail worth Of ages unreckonable That out of the primal mist Brought forth the earth and at last Brought forth ourselves, were it not That we should be ourselves? Yet, what we are moved to do. Here on this sunny morn. Below on a winter night, In the rage of battle, the blast And sudden terror of fire. The blank of palsied wills When ships collide in the night, Or under svunmer's boughs With the voices of labor stilled, — What we are moved to do Will vary with every scene; And how shall it be below? How can we ever find In that stonning whirl of selves, And keep, our very own? Far hence a day may dawn When man shall lean upon man In love and not for help; 26 THE GUERDON But now, would we find ourselves, It must be not in toil for ourselves But in toil for others; so stands The law of the life of the world Whereinto we were born, Wherein alone we can live. Oh! not with the glorious faith Of the sons of morn we toil; We cannot toil as they To make the world new-born In the space of the toiler's life. The utmost we can hope Is to advance by a step The progress of Justice on earth; To be content if we make A little lighter the toil Of reaping for them who have sown, A little harder their task To gather who have not strown; To think it much if we place More of the penalty For the ill days of the world On those who have brought them on. And less on the shoulders of them Who, bent with their burden of toil. Had neither voice nor hand In the shaping of the ill. And yet not all for the sake Of such small gains, we toil. But buoyed by hope and trust In the day we shall not see, And living all our lives With faces illuminate, Yea, roseate, in the glow Of the vision of its dawn. So, in this world of ours. The world we see at our feet, Our only possible world. So alone can we be ourselves; And so in my heart I believe — Start not, my Love, nor shrink — Shall we, though one with the race Below us flaimting its hour, — O glorious privilege, O more than mortal part! — Shall we, helping man to be man, Even we, help God to be God. Let us go down, my Love; Life awaits us below. AFTERSONG: THE HOLY GRAIL ^a^'S homeward through the snow, \^L My daughter's hand in mine, '^'^ I wend at eventide, My back to the sunset's flame, House after house, as I near, Yields not its wonted view Of shapes that flit within. Or faces that peer through the pane; But each is filled, indwelt. Yea, flooded, with crimson light. The mystic, living glow, Blood-red, of the Holy Grail. My walk becomes no more A walk, but a sacrament. And henceforth I shall see In every lowliest house Not merely a dwelling of men. But a halting-place of the Grail. Go, little book, which my brain Has built for the dwelling-place Of a life long shared with my own. Of a soul I would have men love. And give them not alone Glimpses into that life, Revealings of that soul, But sometimes, if thou canst, Translate for men God's love. Writ large on cloud and sky. Into the warmth that fills The beating hiunan heart. Which ever was, now is. And shall be evermore The only Holy Grail. 1^^ I J \ H '^>'^ (Mife* /^ii^v i f . s '' ' 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. ,Ai3j3'h6^S>C lAM O 1 ^HtZ -.1ft AH i "«W ^ItO V) f\f 1 ■ V , LD 21A-60m-4.'64 (E45558l0)476B General Library University of California Berkeley PAT, JAN. 21, 1908 ''724ia UNIVERSITY OF CAUFORNIA LIBRARY