WE are deceived by the shadow, we see not the
substance of things.
For the hills are less solid than thought; and
deeds are but vapors; and flesh
Is a mist thrown off and resumed by the soul, as
a world by a god.
Back of the transient appearance dwells in
ineffable calm
The utter reality, ultimate truth; this seems and
that is.
THE STRUGGLE
I HAVE been down in a dark valley;
I have been groping through a deep gorge;
Far above, the lips of it were rimmed with moonlight,
And here and there the light lay on the dripping
rocks
So that it seemed they dripped with moonlight,
not with water;
So deep it was, that narrow gash among the hills,
That those great pines which fringed its edge
Seemed to me no larger than upthrust fingers
Silhouetted against the sky;
And at its top the vale was strait,
And the rays were slant
And reached but part way down the sides;
I could not see the moon itself;
I walked through darkness, and the valley's edge
Seemed almost level with the stars,
The stars that were like fireflies in the little trees.
It was the midnight of defeat;
I felt that I had failed;
I was mocked of the gods;
There was no way out of that gorge;
The paths led no whither
And I could not remember their beginnings;
I was doomed to wander evermore,
Thirsty, with the sound of mocking waters in
mine ears,
Groping, with gleams of useless light
Splashed in ironic beauty on the rocks above.
And so I whined.
And then despair flashed into rage;
I leapt erect, and cried:
"Could I but grasp my life as sculptors grasp the clay
And knead and thrust it into shape again!—
If all the scorn of Heaven were but thrown
Into the focus of some creature I could clutch!—
If something tangible were but vouchsafed me
By the cold, far gods!—
If they but sent a Reason for the failure of my life
I'd answer it;
If they but sent a Fiend, I'd conquer it!—
But I reach out, and grasp the air,
I rage, and the brute rock echoes my words in
mockery—
How can one fight the sliding moonlight on the cliffs?
You gods, coward gods,
Come down, I challenge you!—
You who set snares with roses and with passion,
You who make flesh beautiful and damn men through
the flesh,
You who plump the purple grape and then put poison
in the cup,
You who put serpents in your Edens,
You who gave me delight of my senses and broke me
for it,
You who have mingled death with beauty,
You who have put into my blood the impulses for
which you cursed me,
You who permitted my brain the doubts wherefore
you damn me,
Behold, I doubt you, gods, no longer, but defy!—
I perish here?
Then I will be slain of a god!
You who have wrapped me in the scorn of your silence,
The divinity in this same dust you flout
Flames through the dust,
And dares,
And flings you back your scorn,—
Come, face to face, and slay me if you will,
But not until you've felt the weight
Of all betricked humanity's contempt
In one bold blow!—
Speak forth a Reason, and I will answer it,
Yes, to your faces I will answer it;
Come garmented in flesh and I will fight with you,
Yes, in your faces will I smite you, gods;
Coward gods and tricksters that set traps
In paradise!—
Far gods that hedge yourselves about with silence
And with distance;
That mock men from the unscalable escarpments of
your Heavens."
Thus I raved, being mad.
I had no sooner finished speaking than I felt
The darkness fluttered by approaching feet,
And the silence was burned through by trembling
flames of sound,
And I was 'ware that Something stood by me.
And with a shout I leapt and grasped that Being,
And the Thing grasped me.
We came to wrestling grips,
And back and forth we swayed,
Hand seeking throat, and crook'd knee seeking
To encrook unwary leg,
And spread toes grasping the uneven ground;
The strained breast muscles cracked and creaked,
The sweat ran in my eyes,
The plagued breath sobbed and whistled through
my throat,
I tasted blood, and strangled, but still struggled
on—
The stars above me danced in swarms like yellow
bees,
The shaken moonlight writhed upon the rocks;—
But at the last I felt his breathing weaker grow,
The tense limbs grow less tense,
And with a bursting cry I bent his head right
back,
Back, back, until
I heard his neck bones snap;
His spine crunched in my grip;
I flung him to the earth and knelt upon his breast
And listened till the fluttering pulse was stilled.
Man, god, or devil, I had wrenched the life from
him!
And lo!—even as he died
The moonlight failed above the vale,—
And somehow, sure, I know now how!—
Between the rifted rocks the great Sun struck
A finger down the cliff, and that red beam
Lay sharp across the face of him that I had slain;
And in that light I read the answer of the silent
gods
Unto my cursed-out prayer,
For he that lay upon the ground was—I!
I understood the lesson then;
It was myself that lay there dead;
Yes, I had slain my Self.
THE REBEL
No doubt the ordered worlds speed on
With purpose in their wings;
No doubt the ordered songs are sweet
Each worthy angel sings;
And doubtless it is wise to heed
The ordered words of Kings;
But how the heart leaps up to greet
The headlong, rebel flight,
Whenas some reckless meteor
Blazes across the night!
Some comet—Byron—Lucifer—
Has dared to Be, and fight!
No doubt but it is safe to dwell
Where ordered duties are;
No doubt the cherubs earn their wage
Who wind each ticking star;
No doubt the system is quite right!—
Sane, ordered, regular;
But how the rebel fires the soul
Who dares the strong gods' ire!
Each Byron!—Shelley!—Lucifer!—
And all the outcast choir
That chant when some Prometheus
Leaps up to steal Jove's fire!
THE CHILD AND THE MILL
BETTER a pauper, penniless, asleep on the kindly
sod—
Better a gipsy, houseless, but near to the heart
of God,
That beats for ears not dulled by the clanking
wheels of care—
Better starvation and freedom, hope and the good
fresh air
Than death to the Something in him that was
born to laugh and dream,
That was kin to the idle lilies and the ripples of
the stream.
For out of the dreams of childhood, that careless
come and go,
The boy gains strength, unknowing, that the Man
will prove and know.
But these fools with their lies and their dollars,
their mills and their bloody hands,
Who make a god of a wheel, who worship their
whirring bands,
They are flinging the life of a people, raw, to the
brute machines.
Dull-eyed, weary, and old—old in his early teens—
Stunted and stupid and twisted, marred in the
mills of grief,
Can your factories fashion a Man of this thing—
a Man and a Chief?
Dumb is the heart of him now, at the time when
his heart should sing—
Wasters of body and brain, what race will the
future bring?
What of the nation's nerve whenas swift crises
come?
What of the brawn that should heave the guns on
the beck of the drum?
Thieves of body and soul, who can neither think
nor feel,
Swine-eyed priests of little false gods of gold and
steel,
Bow to your obscene altars, worship your loud
mills then!
Feed to Moloch and Baal the brawn and brains
of men—
But silent and watchful and hidden forever over
all
The masters brood of those Mills that "grind
exceeding small."
And it needs no occult art nor magic to foreshow
That a people who sow defeat they will reap the
thing they sow.
"SIC TRANSIT GLORIA MUNDI"
CONQUERORS leonine, lordly,
Princes and vaunting kings,
Ye are drunk with the sound of your braggart
trumps—
_But lo! ye are little things!
Earth … it is charnel with monarchs!
And the puffs of dust that start
Where your war steeds stamp with their ringing hoofs
Were each some warrior's heart._
Peoples imperial, mighty,
Masterful, challenging fate,
The tread of your cohorts shakes the hills—
_But lo! ye are not great!
Nations that swarm and murmur,
Ye are moths that flutter and climb—
Ye are whirling gnats, ye are swirling bees,
Tossed in the winds of time!_
Earth that is flushed with glory,
A marvelous world ye are!
_But lo! in the midst of a million stars
Ye are only one pale star!
A breath stirs the dark abysses….
The deeps below the deep
Are troubled and vexed … and a thousand worlds
Fall on eternal sleep!_
THE COMRADE
I
HATH not man at his noblest
An air of something more than man?—
A hint of grace immortal,
Born of his greatly daring to assist the gods
In conquering these shaggy wastes,
These desert worlds,
And planting life and order in these stars?—
So Woman at her best:
Her eyes are bright with visions and with dreams
That triumph over time;
Her plumed thought, wing for wing, is mate with
his.
II
The world rolls on from dream to dream,
And 'neath the vast impersonal revenges of its
going,
Crushed fools that cried defeat
Lie dead amid the dust they prophesied—
Ye doubters of man's larger destiny,
Ye that despair,
Look backward down the vistaed years,
And all is battle—and all victory!
Man fought, to be a man!
Through painful centuries the slow beast fought,
Blinded and baffled, fought to gain his soul;—
Wild, hairy, shag, and feared of shadows,
Yet the clouds
Made him strange signals that he puzzled o'er;—
Beast, child, and ape,
And yet the winds harped to him, and the sea
Rolled in upon his consciousness
Its tides of wonder and romance;—
Uncouth and caked with mire,
And yet the stars said something to him, and the
sun
Declared itself a god;—
The lagging cycles turned at last
The pictures into thought,
Thought flowered in soul;—
But, oh, the myriad weary years
Ere Caliban was Shakespeare's self
And Darwin's ape had Darwin's brain!—
The battling, battling, and the steep ascent,
The fight to hold the little gained,
The loss, the doubt, the shaken heart,
The stubborn, groping slow recovery!—
But looking backward toward the dim beginnings,
You that despair,
Hath he not climbed and conquered?
Look backward and all's Victory!
What coward looks forward and foresees defeat?
III
Who climbed beside him, and who fought
And suffered and was glad?
Is she a lesser thing than he,
Who stained the slopes with bloody feet, or stood
Beside him on some hard-won eminence of hope
Exulting as the bold dawn swept
A harper hand along the ringing hills?
Flesh of his flesh, and of his soul the soul,
Hath she not fought, hath she not climbed?
And how is she a lesser thing?—
Nay, if she ever was
'Twas we that made her so, who called her queen
But kept her slave.
IV
Had she not courage for the fight?
Hath she not courage for the years to come?
Hath she not courage who descends alone—
(How pitifully alone, except for Love!)
Where man's thought even falters that would
follow,
Into the shadowy abyss
(Through vast and murmurous caverns dark with
crowding dread
And terrible with hovering wings),
To battle there with Death?—to battle
There with Death, and wrest from him,
O Conqueror and Mother,
Life!
V
Hath she too long dwelt dream-bound in the world
of love,
Unconscious of the sterner throes,
The more austere, impersonal, wide faith,
The urge that drives Christs to the cross
Not for the love of one beloved,
But for the love of all?
If so, she wakes!
Wakes and demands a share in all man's bolder
destinies,
The high, audacious ventures of the soul
That thinks to scale the bastioned slopes
And strike stark Chaos from his throne.
We still stand in the dawn of time.
Not meanly let us stand nor shaken with low
doubts!
For there beyond the verge and margin of gray cloud
The future thrills with promise
And the skies are tremulous with golden light;—
She too would share those victories,
Comrade, and more than comrade;—
New times, new needs confront us now;
We must evolve new powers
To battle with;—
We must go forward now together,
Or perchance we fail!
ENVOI
A LITTLE WHILE
_A little while the tears and laughter,
The willow and the rose—
A little while, and what comes after
No man knows.
An hour to sing, to love and linger …
Then lutanist and lute
Will fall on silence, song and singer
Both be mute.
Our gods from our desires we fashion….
Exalt our baffled lives,
And dream their vital bloom and passion
Still survives;
But when we're done with mirth and weeping,
With myrtle, rue, and rose,
Shall Death take Life into his keeping? …
No man knows._
_What heart hath not, through twilight places,
Sought for its dead again
To gild with love their pallid faces? …
Sought in vain! …
Still mounts the Dream on shining pinion …
Still broods the dull distrust …
Which shall have ultimate dominion,
Dream, or dust?
A little while with grief and laughter,
And then the day will close;
The shadows gather … what comes after
No man knows!_
Note: In "The Parting," page 161, line 4, I have changed "they face" to "thy face"; in "The Struggle," page 173, line 4, I have changed "l!o" to "lo!"
*****
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