Freedom, Truth And Beauty Part 14

IN HEAVEN NO HEART STILL HEAVES

Lo! G.o.d lets drop blue doves which ground the mind Like clover; then, with drawing to the skies, His pleasure is to watch the flocks arise.

Here, there, they mount; they show no cloud, no wind, Can hinder homing; and the angels find No transport, like the sight, for, to their eyes, 'Tis more souls for the joy, which glorifies The Father, traced to love by pigeon-kind.

Oh, to his love, how great our spirit's worth!

Each is as all. In heaven, no heart still heaves.

The sun sinks with its last of lingering eves, And, then, if dearest doves of azure birth, Wife, parent, child, be missed, off mercy leaves With stars for eyes, to search the darks of earth.

ST. PETER'S CATHEDRAL IN ROME

This temple is soul-startling. 'Tis to me A thunder storm in stone, with Sinai flare Across the Ages. 'Tis the Fiend's despair And the Arch-angel's Triumph. It sets free The mind and soul with cert.i.tude, Christ's key Which, like the Sun, opes Heaven--the Good and Fair.

Still, oft, what darkness drowns the sun's noon glare Within the Temple! 'Tis from Calvary.

Oh, 'tis from Calvary's grief. 'Tis Christ's emotion, On from the Cross, that from His glory known, The German should have fled and, frantic, thrown Away his soul to Strauss or Kant's vague notion, Unhumaning, till, in the Kaiser, grown A Neitche whirl-wind in a crimson ocean.

MY BUGLER BOY

With heart pain and with quiver of the lip, I bid my boy "good bye," with words of cheer.

I hug him to my heart to hide a tear, And hold him close so long, that no tongue-slip Could more betray my bodings for his s.h.i.+p, Or troop, when landed. It is when I hear My daughters' voices, that I shame off fear And take my boy's both hands with firmest grip.

Go, son, and, though with thy young life 'tis blown, Blare thou the Bugle, rousing man to sweep The monsters back to h.e.l.l's profoundest deep, Where, mocking Spring and Sun-rise, they have grown On longings for the sea, the world must weep When, from its heart, the hope of Peace has flown.

KAISER, BEWARE

Dost thou, mad Kaiser, for historic name, Set fire to Europe? Is it joy to gaze At blacker smoke than Etna's, and a blaze That wakes up Chaos, wild to come and claim The World, since Light, G.o.d-bidden though it came, Has failed to dawn upon our human ways?

O Twin of Chaos! peer thou through the haze!

'Tis Human Beings feed the crackling flame.

Beware, the smoke, like Etna's, is the curse Of widows on thy people-dooming throne, And in no country, more than in thine own, Cry out all mothers: "Wherefore bear and nurse?

To feed war with our sons, our flesh and bone, That chaos may reclaim the Universe?"

WOMAN, IN GERMANY

The German mother has too long been what A Chancellor once called the "Kingdom's Cow."

Ah, as she bears the droves for slaughter, how Her dumb-beast eyes crave pity for her lot!

See, there she smiles, like loving G.o.d forgot-- All His supernal patience on her brow.

How long must her grand arch of brain, as now, Bear up a universe "of what should not"?

There, lies she, crushed by troops in hot pursuit Of mocking shadows; for be Gain complete, What is it but twin brother to defeat?

Stand up the dead on any b.l.o.o.d.y route.

Stoop for no kiss from orphans, at thy feet, O Triumph! for ash-cord is all thy fruit.

O THOU PALE MOON

O fair, full moon! I look close at thy face.

Thou must be happy, being in the skys; And, yet, thy flush grows pallor to mine eyes.

Thou art as one, who breathless after chase, Would rest, but dreads to check her onward pace.

O fugitive from where no fledgling flies, No bee finds bud, and where red billows rise, Engulfing down dark years, the Human Race!

O thou pale moon, who hast companioned Man Through every darkness since the night's first fall!

Hast thou, along thy foot-worn, azure wall, Ever seen seas so hard for hope to span, As this red surge, that in a spring so small, A bird could beak it up, its flood began?

THE TIGER

How glares the tiger in his desert lair-- Now half the world! Beholding with dismay That Human Freedom is the tiger's prey, A giant, down whose shoulders, broad and bare, The long, thick, crimson flow is Sampson's hair, Makes haste to clutch the beast.

Oh, how the clay beneath their struggle, reddens, night and day, Till lies the beast, a shapeless carca.s.s there!

Oh! never from the long, thick crimson flow A down thy shoulders from thy n.o.ble brow, America, came such G.o.d's-strength as now, Comes to thine arm against the world's grim foe-- The beast that, sighting man, devours him, how The world may end, a wilderness of woe.

TO OUR BOYS "OVER THERE"

Where flies our flag is Freedom's holy ground; There, it unfurls all benisons to Man.

The twin of Spring, its spread unfolds G.o.d's plan Of human happiness, by setting bound To greed, l.u.s.t, powers,--all colds,--that Right be crowned.

Lo! where it leads, ye youth form valor's van, Mirrored and echoed by the azure's span For ages, for Man's gain in yours is wound.

Oh, justice's Hot Gulf Stream are ye, who open The sea, which fiendish craft has frozen hard!

Oh, may your warmth for righteousness transform The tyrant's artic region, with no hope in, To Freedom's Temperate Zone, which they, who guard The planets, save from wreck by quake or storm.