Perpetual Light : a memorial Part 11

Head back, teeth bared, eyes aglitter, Questioning still the black reply, Laboring stride and breath grown bitter-- _Phantom hors.e.m.e.n swerving by!_

Foot on the flint and burning, parching Death at the throat, with gall to taste.

_Rank on rank are the footmen marching, Wave on wave do the footmen haste!_

Past and past me toiled and slowing, Gasping breathing and straining limb,-- _Rank on rank are the footmen going Forward to fog and the distance dim._

Sledge on the brain and huge hands crus.h.i.+ng Hard on my heart that they wring at will.

_Wave on wave are the footmen rus.h.i.+ng, Surging in silence across the hill._

Sudden lit road they run together Just as the cloven mist-wreaths close!

Each, each strives by a stirrup-leather Where some glimmering horseman goes!

Iron in sinew, steel persuasion Now of the weak and sobbing will; Scorn that beats on the old evasion; Limbs that move for the further hill.

Teeth clenched hard on an execration, Chin sunk deep on a laboring chest-- Racing death with a revelation, Dead and done with--but forging abreast,

Forging past them and past, and gaining Once again to my hard-fought place.

Lord of Runners, requite my feigning!

Help me only to run this race!

Head-down, plunged through the roiling weather, Flinging the sweat from a straining brow,-- _Now, I run by your stirrup-leather.

Golden Horseman, I see you now!_

QUE SAIS-JE?

If I could answer that sob of the brave little heart, If I could answer that silence I suddenly fear, If I could give him truth that would set this apart From creeping question, my dear,

There would be ground for our feet, sky for our eyes, At least, at worst. All I can whisper is dreams And faith I hold, being doubtful of all things "wise"

And all the outrage that seems.

We are your boys to the end, that is all I know.

I the stronger as yet, but knowing no more For all my years than I guessed at years ago And searched through weary lore.

I thought they knew who were older and wiser than I.

I saw them confident, grave, with their answers swift.

Till I stood in turn at the edge of earth and sky And saw the planets adrift,

And felt my heart struggling and striving for rest And my baffled mind groping and yearning for peace In some great answer or on some infinite breast Of last complete release.

And now I turn his mind to fanciful things And grip him close and hoa.r.s.ely murmur my love And pray away from him all this pain that clings To this mind I am weary of.

Oh, I will teach him as best a man can teach And strive to find him all knowledge of you I hold And make you near to him even when out of reach Of my treacherous heart and cold.

For though I cannot see there is more to be seen, And what I cannot know is in presciences, And all you are is as it has ever been Between my heart and his.

EBB-TIDE

You who were never afraid of truth or doubt, Only saying "The light in the soul is real, The spirit of grace is true, the lamp is not put out."

I must follow forever your white ideal.

Splendor amid the smoke and the dust and vapor, Truth through the litter of lies and rubble of dreams, Mutable yet immutable; changed, and the shaper Of all that light in the mind that steadily gleams!

So--words fail, and run to ironic length; Like panting breath the phrases quiver and fade.

And the heart unthought-of throbs its appalling strength-- Tireless--till it too in the dust is laid.

But something lives--say there is something lives!

Our pa.s.sion it is, all of our will to be-- Something in men like a rout of fugitives Hurrying on the sh.o.r.e of a phantom sea,

Hurrying, wailing, questing, seeing the moon Light that waste of beauty and terror and plangent sound; Knowing the tide creeps on, and that soon, too soon, All of the torches and all of the flowers lie drowned

Yet that that sea moves not of its movement only, All of the dim vast force is motes that blend, Each still striving and still secure and lonely Unto some end, some great mysterious end.

You who were never afraid of truth or doubt-- Granted that truth we know!--oh, eyes of mine, Eyes in my soul that will never glimmer out,-- This is my soul's ebb-tide, but I make the Sign!

COWARD

By her beauty stayed, by her love empowered, (_Coward! Coward!_) Take the honest light and pray for grace.

Where her lightning struck, where her pureness flowered, (_Coward! Coward!_) Dare to see her face.

Through the sea of lies--skies have always lowered!-- (_Coward! Coward!_) Be she your horizon or your mist, Make straight on, though dawn be still undowered, (_Coward! Coward!_) Toward the timeless tryst.

One thing now you know for truth at least, One thing more than groan of witless beast, One thing more than jest at mumming feast, Pain is still increased, increased, increased Marking life like milestones toward Love's East.

AQUILIFER

Ax and bundled rods let Caesar's henchmen bear, Down to the house of sods processional torchmen pa.s.s,-- When was your part with these, armed thought's aquilifer, Turning with streaming standard where the barbarians ma.s.s!

Caesar's screaming eagles black as h.e.l.l's vultures flew, But birds went up our dawning splendid and wing and wing And bright for the slaves and captives your fearless banner blew And laughing-glad as a trumpet the faith you still could sing.

Old as the world is evil and disenchantment old.

Man's ancient heart is bitter, his hard eyes doubt of a sign.

Blown hair beneath that banner that floated in folds of gold, In spirit I see you standing first in the battle-line.

Kind, and a girl, and little, but wiser than all their sneers; Truer than their predictions, daring to be not base; Daring to ride for the Captain who held through blood and tears Life well lost for justice and love acclaimed to the race.

Still with s.h.i.+fting and turning, with minds and the ways of swine, Earth is girded by Caesar's men, life a stag in a snare,-- Yet still--your banner burning first in the battle-line, Aye, and the trumpets blowing for dawning, Aquilifer!

THE WOMAN

You could hurt and you could heal, You could hide and still reveal, You were lilies, lilies and steel.

You the near and you the far Were as lamplight and a star.