The Project Gutenberg eBook ofPoems of SentimentThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: Poems of SentimentAuthor: Ella Wheeler WilcoxRelease date: October 1, 2004 [eBook #6617]Most recently updated: July 15, 2014Language: EnglishCredits: Transcribed from the 1919 Gay and Hancock edition by David Price*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS OF SENTIMENT ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: Poems of SentimentAuthor: Ella Wheeler WilcoxRelease date: October 1, 2004 [eBook #6617]Most recently updated: July 15, 2014Language: EnglishCredits: Transcribed from the 1919 Gay and Hancock edition by David Price
Title: Poems of Sentiment
Author: Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Author: Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Release date: October 1, 2004 [eBook #6617]Most recently updated: July 15, 2014
Language: English
Credits: Transcribed from the 1919 Gay and Hancock edition by David Price
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS OF SENTIMENT ***
Transcribed from the 1919 Gay and Hancock edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org
BYELLA WHEELER WILCOX
Decorative graphic
GAY AND HANCOCK LTD.34 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDENLONDON
1919
[All rights reserved]
Published1909Reprinted1909 (twice), 1910 (twice), 1911[twice], 1912, 1913, 1914, 1916, 1918, 1919
N.B.—The only volumes of my poems issuedwith my approval in the British Empire arepublished byMessrs. Gay & Hancock.
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX
PAGE
Double Carnations
1
Never Mind
3
Two Women
5
It All Will Come Out Right
7
A Warning
9
Shrines
10
The Watcher
11
Swimming Song
13
The Law
15
Love, Time, and Will
18
The Two Ages
20
Couleur de Rose
23
Last Love
25
Life’s Track
26
An Ode to Time
28
Regret and Remorse
31
Easter Morn
32
Blind
33
The Yellow-covered Almanac
35
The Little White Hearse
38
Realisation
40
Success
41
The Lady and the Dame
43
Heaven and Hell
45
Love’s Supremacy
46
The Eternal Will
48
Insight
50
A Woman’s Love
52
The Pæan of Peace
54
“Has Been”
56
Duty’s Path
57
March
59
The End of the Summer
60
Sun Shadows
63
“He that Looketh”
64
An Erring Woman’s Love
65
A Song of Republics
81
Memorial Day—1892
85
When baby Souls Sail Out
87
To Another Woman’s Baby
89
Diamonds
90
Rubies
90
Sapphires
91
Turquoise
91
Reform
92
A Minor Chord
93
Death’s Protest
94
September
95
Wail of an Old-timer
96
Was, Is, and Yet-to-be
98
Mistakes
100
Dual
101
The All-creative Spark
103
Be not Content
105
Action
107
Two Roses
108
Satiety
110
A Solar Eclipse
111
A Suggestion
112
The Depths
113
Life’s Opera
114
The Salt Sea-wind
115
New Year
116
Concentration
118
Thoughts
119
Luck
120
A wild Pink nestled in a garden bed,A rich Carnation flourished high above her,One day he chanced to see her pretty headAnd leaned and looked again, and grew to love her.
The Moss (her humble mother) saw with fearThe ardent glances of the princely stranger;With many an anxious thought and dewy tearShe sought to hide her darling from this danger.
The gardener-guardian of this noble budA cruel trellis interposed between them.No common Pink should mate with royal blood,He said, and sought in every way to wean them.
The poor Pink pined and faded day by day:Her restless lover from his prison bowerCalled in a priestly bee who passed that way,And sent a message to the sorrowing flower.
The fainting Pink wept as the bee drew near,Droning his prayers, and begged him to confess her.Her weary mother, over-taxed by fear,Slept, while the priest leaned low to shrive and bless her.
But lo! ere long the tale went creeping out,The rich Carnation and the Pink were married!The cunning bee had brought the thing aboutWhile Mamma Moss in Slumber’s arms had tarried.
And proud descendants of that loving pair,The offspring of that true and ardent passion,Are famous for their beauty everywhere,And leaders in the floral world of fashion.
Whatever your work and whatever its worth,No matter how strong or clever,Some one will sneer if you pause to hear,And scoff at your best endeavour.For the target art has a broad expanse,And wherever you chance to hit it,Though close be your aim to the bull’s-eye fame,There are those who will never admit it.
Though the house applauds while the artist plays,And a smiling world adores him,Somebody is there with an ennuied airTo say that the acting bores him.For the tower of art has a lofty spire,With many a stair and landing,And those who climb seem small oft-timeTo one at the bottom standing.
So work along in your chosen nicheWith a steady purpose to nerve you;Let nothing men say who pass your wayRelax your courage or swerve you.The idle will flock by the Temple of ArtFor just the pleasure of gazing;But climb to the top and do not stop,Though they may not all be praising.
I know two women, and one is chasteAnd cold as the snows on a winter waste,Stainless ever in act and thought(As a man, born dumb, in speech errs not).But she has malice toward her kind,A cruel tongue and a jealous mind.Void of pity and full of greed,She judges the world by her narrow creed;A brewer of quarrels, a breeder of hate,Yet she holds the key to “Society’s” Gate.
The other woman, with heart of flame,Went mad for a love that marred her name:And out of the grave of her murdered faithShe rose like a soul that has passed through death.Her aims are noble, her pity so broad,It covers the world like the mercy of God.A soother of discord, a healer of woes,Peace follows her footsteps wherever she goes.The worthier life of the two, no doubt,And yet “Society” locks her out.
Whatever is a cruel wrong,Whatever is unjust,The honest years that speed alongWill trample in the dust.In restless youth I railed at fateWith all my puny might,But now I know if I but waitIt all will come out right.
Though Vice may don the judge’s gownAnd play the censor’s part,And Fact be cowed by Falsehood’s frownAnd Nature ruled by art;Though Labour toils through blinding tearsAnd idle Wealth is might,I know the honest, earnest yearsWill bring it all out right.
Though poor and loveless creeds may passFor pure religion’s gold;Though ignorance may rule the massWhile truth meets glances cold,I know a law complete, sublime,Controls us with its might,And in God’s own appointed timeIt all will come out right.
There was a flame, oh! such a tiny flame—One fleeting hour had spanned its birth and death,But for a silly child with playful breathWho fanned it into fury. It becameA mighty conflagration. Ah, the cost!House, home, and thoughtless child alike were lost.
Lady beware. Fan not the harmless glowOf admiration into ardent love,Lean not with red curled smiling lips aboveThe flickering spark of sinless flame, and blow,Lest in the sudden waking of desireThou, like the child, shalt perish in the fire.
About a holy shrine or sacred place,Where many hearts have bowed in earnest prayer,The loveliest spirits congregate from space,And bring their sweet, uplifting influence there.
If in your chamber you pray oft and well,Soon will these angel-messengers arriveAnd make their home with you, and where they dwellAll worthy toil and purposes shall thrive.
I know a humble, plainly furnished room,So thronged with presences serene and bright,The heaviest heart therein forgets its gloomAs in some gorgeous temple filled with light.
Those heavenly spirits, beauteous and divine,Live only in an atmosphere of prayer;Make for yourself a sacred, fervent shrine,And you will find them swiftly flocking there.
She gave her soul and body for a carriage,And livened lackey with a vacant grin,And all the rest—house, lands—and called it marriage:The bargain made, a husband was thrown in.
And now, despite her luxury, she’s faded,Gone is the bloom that was so fresh and bright;She has the dark-rimmed eye, the countenance jaded,Of one who watches with the sick at night.
Ah, heaven, she does! her sick heart, sick and dying,Beyond the aid of human skill to save,In that cold room her breast is hourly lying,And her grim thoughts crowd near to dig its grave.
And yet it lingers, suffering and wailing,As sick hearts will that feed upon despair,And that lone watcher, unrelieved, is palingWith vigils that no pitying soul can share.
Ah, lady! it is hardly what you thought it,This life of luxury and social power;You gave yourself as principal, and bought it,But God extracts the interest hour by hour.
I am coming, coming to thee,My strong-armed lover, the Sea!On thy great broad breast I will lie and rest,And thou shalt talk to me.
I have come to thee, all unsought,I have stolen an hour from thought,And peace and power thou canst give in that hour,Which thy rival Earth gives not.
Alone here, under the sky,And the whole world drifting by!Thy breast of brine thrills close to mine,While the cloudless sun sails high.
I fly, but thou givest chase—Thy kisses are on my face!Be bold and free as thou wilt, O Sea,There is life in thy close embrace.
Throat and cheek and tressAre damp where thy salt lips press!There is strength and bliss in thy daring kiss,And joy in thy bold caress.
And what is the Earth to me!I have left it all, O Sea!With its dust and soil and strife and toil,For one glad hour with thee.
The sun may be clouded, yet ever the sunWill sweep on its course till the cycle is run.And when into chaos the systems are hurled,Again shall the Builder reshape a new world.
Your path may be clouded, uncertain your goal;Move on, for the orbit is fixed for your soul.And though it may lead into darkness of night,The torch of the Builder shall give it new light.
You were, and you will be: know this while you are.Your spirit has travelled both long and afar.It came from the Source, to the Source it returns;The spark that was lighted, eternally burns.
It slept in the jewel, it leaped in the wave,It roamed in the forest, it rose in the grave,It took on strange garbs for long æons of years,And now in the soul of yourself it appears.
From body to body your spirit speeds on;It seeks a new form when the old one is gone;And the form that it finds is the fabric you wroughtOn the loom of the mind, with the fibre of thought.
As dew is drawn upward, in rain to descend,Your thoughts drift away and in destiny blend.You cannot escape them; or petty, or great,Or evil, or noble, they fashion your fate.
Somewhere on some planet, sometime and somehow,Your life will reflect all the thoughts of your now.The law is unerring; no blood can atone;The structure you rear you must live in alone.
From cycle to cycle, through time and through space,Your lives with your longings will ever keep pace.And all that you ask for, and all you desire,Must come at your bidding, as flames out of fire.
Once list to that voice and all tumult is done,Your life is the life of the Infinite One;In the hurrying race you are conscious of pause,With love for the purpose and love for the cause.
You are your own devil, you are your own God,You fashioned the paths that your footsteps have trod,And no one can save you from error or sin,Until you shall hark to the Spirit within.
A soul immortal, Time, God everywhere,Without, within—how can a heart despair,Or talk of failure, obstacles, and doubt?(What proofs of God? The little seeds that sprout,Life, and the solar system, and their laws.Nature? Ah, yes; but what was Nature’s cause?)
All mighty words are short: God, life, and death,War, peace, and truth, are uttered in a breath.And briefly said are love, and will, and time;Yet in them lies a majesty sublime.
Love is the vast constructive power of space;Time is the hour which calls it into place;Will is the means of using time and love,And bringing forth the heart’s desires thereof.
The way is love, the time is now, and willThe patient method. Let this knowledge fillThy consciousness, and fate and circumstance,Environment, and all the ills of chanceMust yield before the concentrated mightOf those three words, as shadows yield to light.
Go, charge thyself with love; be infiniteAnd opulent with thy large use of it:’Tis from free sowing that full harvest springs;Love God and life and all created things.
Learn time’s great value; to this mandate bow,The hour of opportunity is Now,And from thy will, as from a well-strung bow,Let the swift arrows of thy wishes go.Though sent into the distance and the dark,The dawn shall prove thy arrows hit the mark.
On great cathedral window I have seenA summer sunset swoon and sink away,Lost in the splendours of immortal art.Angels and saints and all the heavenly hosts,With smiles undimmed by half a thousand years,From wall and niche have met my lifted gaze.Sculpture and carving and illumined page,And the fair, lofty dreams of architects,That speak of beauty to the centuries—All these have fed me with divine repasts.Yet in my mouth is left a bitter taste,The taste of blood that stained that age of art.
Those glorious windows shine upon the blackAnd hideous structure of the guillotine;Beside the haloed countenance of saintsThere hangs the multiple and knotted lash.The Christ of love, benign and beautiful,Looks at the torture-rack, by hate conceivedAnd bigotry sustained. The prison cell,With blood-stained walls, where starving men went mad,Lies under turrets matchless in their grace.
God, what an age! How was it that You letColossal genius and colossal crimeWalk for a hundred years across the earth,Like giant twins? How was it then that men,Conceiving such vast beauty for the world,And such large hopes of heaven, could entertainSuch hellish projects for their fellow-men?How could the hand that, with consummate skillAnd loving patience, limned the luminous page,Drop pen and brush, and seize the branding-rod,To scourge a brother for his differing faith?
Not great this age in beauty or in art;Nothing is wrought to-day that shall endure,For earth’s adornment, through long centuriesNot ours the fervid worship of a GodThat wastes its splendid opulence on glass,Leaving but hate, to give it mortal kin.Yet great this age: its mighty work is manKnowing himself, the universal life.And great our faith, which shows itself in worksFor human freedom and for racial good.The true religion lies in being kind.No age is greater than its faith is broad.Through liberty and love men climb to God.
I want more lives in which to loveThis world so full of beauty,I want more days to use the waysI know of doing duty;I ask no greater joy than this(So much I am life’s lover),When I reach age to turn the pageAnd read the story over.(O love, stay near!)
O rapturous promise of the Spring!O June fulfilling after!If Autumns sigh, when Summers die,’Tis drowned in Winter’s laughter.O maiden dawns, O wifely noons,O siren sweet, sweet nights,I’d want no heaven could earth be givenAgain with its delights(If love stayed near).
There are such glories for the eye,Such pleasures for the ear,The senses reel with all they feelAnd see and taste and hear;There are such ways of doing good,Such ways of being kind,And bread that’s cast on waters fastComes home again, I find.(O love, stay near.)
There are such royal souls to know,There is so much to learn,While secrets rest in Nature’s breastAnd unnamed stars still burn.God toiled six days to make this earth,I think the good folks say—Six lives we need to give full meedOf praise—one for each day(If love stay near).
But oh! if love fled far away,Or veiled his face from me,One life too much, why then were suchA life as this would be.With sullen May and blighted June,Blurred dawn and haggard night,This dear old world in space were hurledIf love lent not his light.(O love, stay near!)
The first flower of the spring is not so fairOr bright as one the ripe midsummer brings.The first faint note the forest warbler singsIs not as rich with feeling, or so rareAs when, full master of his art, the airDrowns in the liquid sea of song he flingsLike silver spray from beak, and breast, and wings.The artist’s earliest effort, wrought with care,The bard’s first ballad, written in his tears,Set by his later toil, seems poor and tame,And into nothing dwindles at the test.So with the passions of maturer years.Let those who will demand the first fond flame,Give me the heart’slast love, for that is best.
This game of life is a dangerous play,Each human soul must watch alway,From the first to the very last.I care not however strong and pure—Let no man say he is perfectly sureThe dangerous reefs are past.
For many a rock may lurk near by,That never is seen when the tide is high—Let no man dare to boast,When the hand is full of trumps—beware,For that is the time when thought and careAnd nerve are needed most.
As the oldest jockey knows to his cost,Full many a well-run race is lostA brief half length from the wire.And many a soul that has fought with sin,And gained each battle, at last gives inTo sudden, fierce desire.
And vain seems the effort of spur and whip,Or the hoarse, hot cry of the pallid lip,When once we have fallen back.It is better to keep on stirrup and rein,The steady poise and the careful strain,In speeding along Life’s track.
A watchful eye and a strong, true handWill carry us under the Judge’s stand,If prayer, too, does its part;And little by little the struggling soulWill grow and strengthen and gain controlOver the passionate heart.
Ho! sportsman Time, whose chargers fleetThe moments, madly driven,Beat in the dust beneath their feetSweet hopes that years have given;Turn, turn aside those reckless steeds,Oh! do not urge them my way;There’s nothing that Time wants or needsIn this contented by-way.
You have down-trodden, in your race,So much that proves your power,Why not avoid my humble place?Why rob me of my dower?With your vast cellars, cavern deep,Packed tier on tier with treasures,You would not miss them should IkeepMy little store of pleasures.
As one who, frightened, flying, flingsHer riches down at random,Your course is paved with precious thingsLife casts before your tandem:The warrior’s fame, the conqueror’s crown,Great creeds for ages cherished,Beneath your chariot-wheels were thrown,And, crushed to earth, they perished.
Although to just and generous deedsYour heart is not a stranger,I have the feeling that one needsTo guard his wealth from danger.And though a most heroic lightOft on your pathway lingers,I’d hide my treasures, if I might,From contact with your fingers.
You are the loyal friend of Truth,Go seek her, make her stronger,And leave the remnant of my youthTo me a little longer.There’s work enough for you beforeEternity shall wed you:Why stoop to steal my simple store?Why make me shun and dread you?
You do not need my joys, I say,Home, love, and friends united—I beg you turn and go the wayWhere wrong waits to be righted;Or pause, and let us chat a while:I’ll listen—not too near you,For oh! no matter how you smile,I fear you, Time, I fear you!
Regret with streaming eyes doth seem alwayA maiden widowed on her wedding day.
While dark Remorse, with eyes too sad for tears,A crushed, desponding Magdalene appears.
One, with a hungering heart unsatisfied,Mourns for imagined joys that were denied.
The other, pierced by recollected sin,Broods o’er the scars of pleasures that have been.
A truth that has long lain buriedAt Superstition’s door,I see, in the dawn uprisingIn all its strength once more.
Hidden away in the darkness,By Ignorance crucified,Crushed under stones of dogmas—Yet lo! it has not died.
It stands in the light transfigured,It speaks from the heights above,“Each soul is its own redeemer;There is no law but Love.”
And the spirits of men are gladdenedAs they welcome this Truth re-bornWith its feet on the grave of ErrorAnd its eyes to the Easter Morn.
Whatever a man may think or feelHe can tell to the world and it hears aright;But it bids the woman conceal, conceal,And woe to the thoughts that at last ignite.She may serve up gossip or dwell on fashion,Or play the critic with speech unkind,But alas for the woman who speaks with passion!For the world is blind—for the world is blind.
It is woman who sits with her starved desire,And drinks to sorrow in cups of tears;She reads by the light of her soul on fireThe secrets of love through lonely years:But out of all she has felt or heardOr read by the glow of her soul’s white flame,If she dare but utter aloud one word—How the world cries shame!—how the world cries shame!
It cannot distinguish between the glowOf a gleaming star, in the sky of gold,Or a spent cigar in the dust below—’Twixt unclad Eve or a wanton bold;And ever if woman speaks what she feels(And feels consistent with God’s great plan)It has cast her under its juggernaut wheels,Since the world began—since the world began.
I left the farm when mother died and changed my place of dwellingTo daughter Susie’s stylish house right on the city street:And there was them before I came that sort of scared me, tellingHow I would find the town folks’ ways so difficult to meet;They said I’d have no comfort in the rustling, fixed-up throng,And I’d have to wear stiff collars every week-day, right along.
I find I take to city ways just like a duck to water;I like the racket and the noise and never tire of shows;And there’s no end of comfort in the mansion of my daughter,And everything is right at hand and money freely flows;And hired help is all about, just listenin’ to my call—But I miss the yellow almanac off my old kitchen wall.
The house is full of calendars from attic to the cellar,They’re painted in all colours and are fancy like to see,But in this one particular I’m not a modern feller,And the yellow-coloured almanac is good enough for me.I’m used to it, I’ve seen it round from boyhood to old age,And I rather like the jokin’ at the bottom of the cage.
I like the way its “S” stood out to show the week’s beginning,(In these new-fangled calendars the days seem sort of mixed),And the man upon the cover, though he wa’n’t exactly winnin’,With lungs and liver all exposed, still showed how we are fixed;And the letters and credentials that was writ to Mr. AyerI’ve often on a rainy day found readin’ pretty fair.
I tried to buy one recently; there wa’n’t none in the city!They toted out great calendars, in every shape and style.I looked at ’em in cold disdain, and answered ’em in pity—“I’d rather have my almanac than all that costly pile.”And though I take to city life, I’m lonesome after allFor that old yellow almanac upon my kitchen wall.
Somebody’s baby was buried to-day—The empty white hearse from the grave rumbled back,And the morning somehow seemed less smiling and gayAs I paused on the walk while it crossed on its way,And a shadow seemed drawn o’er the sun’s golden tract.
Somebody’s baby was laid out to rest,White as a snowdrop, and fair to behold,And the soft little hands were crossed over the breast,And those hands and the lips and the eyelids were pressedWith kisses as hot as the eyelids were cold.
Somebody saw it go out of her sight,Under the coffin lid—out through the door;Somebody finds only darkness and blightAll through the glory of summer-sun light;Somebody’s baby will waken no more.
Somebody’s sorrow is making me weep:I know not her name, but I echo her cry,For the dearly bought baby she longed so to keep,The baby that rode to its long-lasting sleepIn the little white hearse that went rumbling by.
I know not her name, but her sorrow I know;While I paused on the crossing I lived it once more,And back to my heart surged that river of woeThat but in the breast of a mother can flow;For the little white hearse has been, too, atmydoor.
I tread the paths of earlier timesWhere all my steps were set to rhymes.
I gaze on scenes I used to seeWhen dreaming of a vague To be.
I walk in ways made bright of oldBy hopes youth-limned in hues of gold.
But lo! those hopes of future blissSeem dull beside the joy thatis.
My noonday skies are far more brightThan those dreamed of in morning’s light,
And life gives me more joys to holdThan all it promised me of old.
As we gaze up life’s slope, as we gazeIn the morn, ere the dewdrops are dry,What splendour hangs over the ways,What glory gleams there in the sky,What pleasures seem waiting us, highOn the peak of that beauteous slope,What rainbow-hued colours of hope,As we gaze!
As we climb up the hill, as we climb,Our hearts, our illusions, are rent:For Fate, who is spouse of old Time,Is jealous of youth and content.With brows that are brooding and bentShe shadows our sunlight of gold,And the way grows lonely and coldAs we climb.
As we toil on, through trouble and pain,There are hands that will shelter and feed;But once let us dare toattain—They will bruise our bare hearts till they bleed.’Tis the worst of all crimes to succeed,Know this as ye feast on a crust,Know this in the darkness and dust,Ye who climb.
As we stand on the heights of success,Lo! success seems as sad as defeat!Through the lives we may succour and blessAlone may its litter turn sweet!And the world lying there at our feet,With its cavilling praise and its sneer,We must pity, condone, but not hear,Where we stand.
As we live on those heights, we must liveWith the courage and pride of a god;For the world, it has nothing to giveBut the scourge of the lash and the rod.Our thoughts must be noble and broad,Our purpose must challenge men’s gaze,While we seek not their blame or their praiseAs we live.
So, thou hast the art, good dame, thou swearest,To keep Time’s perishing touch at bayFrom the roseate splendour of the cheek so tender,And the silver threads from the gold away.And the tell-tale years that have hurried by usShall tip-toe back, and, with kind good-will,They shall take the traces from off our faces,If we will trust to thy magic skill.
Thou speakest fairly; but if I listenAnd buy thy secret, and prove its truth,Hast thou the potion and magic lotionTo give me also theheartof youth?With the cheek of rose and the eye of beauty,And the lustrous looks of life’s lost prime,Wilt thou bring thronging each hope and longingThat made the glory of that dead Time?
When the sap in the trees sets young buds bursting,And the song of the birds fills the air like spray,Will rivers of feeling come once more stealingFrom the beautiful hills of the far-away?Wilt thou demolish the tower of reason,And fling for ever down into the dustThe caution time brought me, the lessons life taught me,And put in their places my old sweet trust?
If Time’s foot-print from my brow is driven,Canst thou, too, take with thy subtle powersThe burden of thinking, and let me go drinkingThe careless pleasures of youth’s bright hours?If silver threads from my tresses vanish,If a glow once more in my pale cheek gleams,Wilt thou slay duty and give back the beautyOf days untroubled by aught but dreams?
When the soft fair arms of the siren SummerEncircle the earth in their languorous fold,Will vast, deep oceans of sweet emotionsSurge through my veins as they surged of old?Canst thou bring back from a day long-vanishedThe leaping pulse and the boundless aim?I will pay thee double, for all thy trouble,If thou wilt restore all these, good dame.
While forced to dwell apart from thy dear face,Love, robed like sorrow, led me by the handAnd taught my doubting heart to understandThat which has puzzled all the human race.Full many a sage has questioned where in spaceThose counter worlds were? where the mystic strandThat separates them? I have found each land,And Hell is vast, and Heaven a narrow space.
In the small compass of thy clasping arms,In reach and sight of thy dear lips and eyes,There, there for me the joy of Heaven lies.Outside, lo! chaos, terrors’ wild alarms,And all the desolation fierce and fellOf void and aching nothingness, makes Hell.
As yon great Sun in his supreme conditionAbsorbs small worlds and makes them all his own,So does my love absorb each vain ambition,Each outside purpose which my life has known.Stars cannot shine so near that vast orb’d splendour;They are content to feed his flames of fire:And so my heart is satisfied to renderIts strength, its all, to meet thy strong desire.
As in a forest when dead leaves are fallingFrom all save some perennial green tree,So one by one I find all pleasures pallingThat are not linked with or enjoyed by thee.And all the homage that the world may proffer,I take as perfumed oils or incense sweet,And think of it as one thing more to offer,And sacrifice to Love, at thy dear feet.
I love myself because thou art my lover,My name seems dear since uttered by thy voice;Yet, argus-eyed, I watch and would discoverEach blemish in the object of thy choice.I coldly sit in judgment on each error,To my soul’s gaze I hold each fault of me,Until my pride is lost in abject terror,Lest I become inadequate to thee.
Like some swift-rushing and sea-seeking river,Which gathers force the farther on it goes,So does the current of my love foreverFind added strength and beauty as it flows.The more I give, the more remains for giving,The more receive, the more remains to win.Ah! only in eternities of livingWill life be long enough to love thee in.
There is no thing we cannot overcomeSay not thy evil instinct is inherited,Or that some trait inborn makes thy whole life forlorn,And calls down punishment that is not merited.
Back of thy parents and grandparents liesThe Great Eternal Will. That, too, is thineInheritance; strong, beautiful, divine,Sure lever of success for one who tries.
Pry up thy faults with this great lever, Will.However deeply bedded in propensity,However firmly set, I tell thee firmer yetIs that vast power that comes from Truth’s immensity.
Thou art a part of that strange world, I say.Its forces lie within thee, stronger farThan all thy mortal sins and frailties are,Believe thyself divine, and watch, and pray.
There is no noble height thou canst not climb.All triumphs may be thine in Time’s futurity,If whatso’er thy fault, thou dost not faint or halt,But lean upon the staff of God’s security.
Earth has no claim the soul can not contest.Know thyself part of that Eternal Source,And naught can stand before thy spirit’s force.The soul’s divine inheritance is best.
On the river of life, as I float along,I see with the spirit’s sightThat many a nauseous weed of wrongHas root in a seed of right.For evil is good that has gone astray,And sorrow is only blindness,And the world is always under the swayOf a changeless law of kindness.
The commonest error a truth can makeIs shouting its sweet voice hoarse,And sin is only the soul’s mistakeIn misdirecting its force.And love, the fairest of all fair thingsThat ever to man descended,Grows rank with nettles and poisonous thingsUnless it is watched and tended.
There could not be anything better than thisOld world in the way it began;And though some matters have gone amissFrom the great original plan,And however dark the skies may appear,And however souls may blunder,I tell you it all will work out clear,For good lies over and under.
So vast the tide of love within me surging,It overflows like some stupendous sea,The confines of the Present and To-be;And ’gainst the Past’s high wall I feel it urging,As it would cry, “Thou, too, shalt yield to me!”
All other loves my supreme love embodies;I would be she on whose soft bosom nursedThy clinging infant lips to quench their thirst;She who trod close to hidden worlds where God is,That she might have, and hold, and see thee first.
I would be she who stirred the vague, fond fanciesOf thy still childish heart; who through bright daysWent sporting with thee in the old-time plays,And caught the sunlight of thy boyish glancesIn half-forgotten and long-buried Mays.
Forth to the end, and back to the beginning,My love would send its inundating tide,Wherein all landmarks of thy past should hide.If thy life’s lessonmustbe learned through sinning,My grieving virtue would become thy guide.
For I would share the burden of thy errors,So when the sun of our brief life had set,If thou didst walk in darkness and regret,E’en in that shadowy world of nameless terrors,My soul and thine should be companions yet.
And I would cross with thee those troubled oceansOf dark remorse whose waters are despair:All things my jealous, reckless love would dare,So that thou mightst not recollect emotionsIn which it did not have a part and share.
There is no limit to my love’s full measure,It’s spirit-gold is shaped by earth’s alloy;I would be friend and mother, mate and toy,I’d have thee look to me for every pleasure,And in me find all memories of joy.
Yet though I love thee in such selfish fashion,I would wait on thee, sitting at thy feet,And serving thee, if thou didst deem it meet.And couldst thou give me one fond hour of passion,I’d take that hour and call my life complete.
With ever some wrong to be righting,With self ever seeking for place,The world has been striving and fightingSince man was evolved out of space.Bold history into dark regionsHis torchlight has fearlessly cast,He shows us tribes warring in legions,In jungles of ages long passed.
Religion, forgetting her station,Forgetting her birthright from God,Set nation to warring with nationAnd scattered dissension abroad.Dear creeds have made men kill each other,Fair faith has bred hate and despair,And brother has battled with brotherBecause of a difference in prayer.
But earth has grown wiser and kinder,For man is evolving a soul:From wars of an age that was blinder,We rise to a peace-girdled goal.Where once men would murder in treasonAnd slaughter each other in hordes,They now meet together and reason,With thoughts for their weapons, not swords.
The brute in humanity dwindlesAnd lessens as time speeds along,And the spark of Divinity kindlesAnd blazes up brightly and strong.The seer can behold in the distanceThe race that shall people the world—Strong men of a godlike existenceUnarmed, and with war banners furled.
No longer the bloodthirsty savageMan’s vast spirit strength shall unfold;And tales of red warfare and ravageShall seem like ghost stories of old.For the booming of guns and the rattleOf carnage and conflict shall cease,And the bugle-call, leading to battle,Shall change to a pæan of peace.