FLOWERS ON ALL SHORES
Not long after the opening of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, Blossom Day, an annual feature in California life was observed, to be followed later by nature's offering of flowers on the shores of all nations. Here are some blossoms:
* * * * *
Flowers speak in all nations of hope to the fainting heart. And in the nation where flowers degenerate man cannot live.
* * * * *
"I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journeywork of the stars
And the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven
And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels."
—Whitman.
* * * * *
Who am I and who are you to shun the sea-born rain when trees and flowers and birds are made merry by it and never think of shelter.—Adapted from Quayle.
* * * * *
"Flowers and fruits are always fit gifts because a ray of beauty is appreciated all over the world; because the language of the flower can be understood in any land."—Comfort Guild.
[A] THE UNITED SEAS
The wise men from every land, believing
That unseen good is often
With great events allied unawares,
Must be asked to unfold the meaning
Involved in the uniting of the Earth's greatest seas.
* * * * *
For after aeons of isthmian neighborliness
And ages of barrier'd friendship,
Herculean genius has removed the mountain
And stubborn nature has yielded to the union of the Pacific
With the impetuous Atlantic,
To be commemorated with an apocalypse of light and color,
By the races assembled at the Golden Gate,
Within the natural sanctuary of our Bay,
Cathedralled by the mountains and the arching blue sky built o'er Immensity.
* * * * *
The petty Shylocks have not been invited
To be there with unfilled bags for gold,
Nor the sordid traffickers in human flesh,
To daily swarm a city's pits of hell
And by a lewd commerce augment their filthy gains.
Sad wretches! They that holy hour would misfit and defame.
For their hands, the jewels could finger
And the pageantry their eyes could observe
But their souls could never divine the sublime thought
Of the bridal of two vast seas.
* * * * *
So give way, blind temporizers!
For the seers and prophets have seen our star and have arrived
Rightly to interpret the emotions struggling for utterance in that unusual hour.
In these ominous words, silencing all speech:
"The Human mind is Leaving the Log Cabin and Statehouse
To Enter 'the Parliament of Man,' the Federation of the World."
* * * * *
So the true from every land, vast armies of welcome guests, they come!—
The sons of kings and nobles and the late-increasing hosts of freemen, so innumerable,
To see the passing of provincial national life.
* * * * *
And our imagination now hears the mighty tread of pilgrims,
And sees this Western paradise bestirred in final preparation for its festive attire—
Our Rocky's wide slope, within its hidden laboratories,
By some chemical's new magic hastening to make more enchanting its coast-wide tribute of flowers;
If possible more stately its redwoods, more mighty its hills;
And our stars in the heavens are brightening their lights
To welcome the long caravans from the nations,
The ships from all the seas,—
To a ceremony epochal, from dawn into days worthily prolonged.
* * * * *
For the silvery Queen of Night will tarry in a veiled appreciation
Until the powerful King of Day comes resplendent from the east, in a new vernal splendor,
While the globe, electrified and cabled into hearing,
With its armies momentarily halting in embarrassed meditation,
Will quiver with attention at the dawn of that momentous day
When it is authoritatively announced:
That the tumultuous Atlantean stalwart, the first born of the east
And the interminable Austral ocean, gentle empress of the west,
Have been joined in the tidal grasp of a spheric wedlock
Uniting two hemisphere estates.
Sure to be conducive to international progress,
Prophetic of a planetary brotherhood,
And bravely resolute for world-peace.
* * * * *
Yes, in spite of war and carnage,
The invincible human spirit will then escape the thralldom of a temporary despair;
For in this land of hope and courage, which is a prophecy of the world to be,
Where the strong sons of freedom's pioneers still breathe a bracing air,
And drink a freeman's water fresh from every hill—and not human blood with warring kings—
Here, the vision so transforming,
The vision of our fathers, will become the vision of all the sons of men!
* * * * *
Here, where reason and not hate is peculiarly creative,
Where the intelligence of peace is so successful—and not the blind force of retrogressive men—
Here, the new spirit of World Democracy, still youthful like David, must be strengthened to slay the European Goliath;
To defy Mar's staggering bluff and check the antiquated ambition of war.
For not only will the vision of our fathers become the vision of all the sons of men,
But the resolution of their heroes is also to become the purpose of the race!
* * * * *
So, the wise men, they too have come!
Not to finger, nor to trifle;
Undismayed by war or ignorance,
Loyal advocates of unfailing providence,
Cabined not by years nor decades—
They look out upon the ages and can trace historic movements;
And for them a thousand years is no longer than a day.
* * * * *
They look northward toward Ambition;
They look eastward toward a Manager;
They look westward toward a Holy City;
They look southward toward an Isthmus;
They look inward and declare, "Man was born to grow, not stop!"
They look throng-ward, to interpret the strange spell overcasting seers and doubters, and exclaim:
"The international mind subconscious is struggling successfully here to become conscious.
Yea, take the scales from your eyes and you will see
That the mind of man is becoming broader
And your brotherhood from a race is to be freed
As the pilgrims from the nations become the pioneers of the sphere—
As they catch the prophet's vision,
The Son of Man's distant vision of an essentially united earth,
When they begin to think the world-thoughts,
Irresistibly inspired by the spheric union of Jehovah's two vast seas."
* * * * *
For the universal Father, the God of the united seas,
He is still the Lord of all might.
His strength is in genius, in love and in truth.
THE WORDS OF AN EASTERN SAGE
Charles Francis Adams, whose grandfather was one of our early Presidents and whose father was a Minister to London before the Civil War, felt with overwhelming reality the inspiration of the world vision.
Mr. Adams, a man of sound judgment and of importance and distinction, a month before his recent death, in writing about the European War, made the following sage remarks:
"We suddenly find ourselves thrown back an entire century. Again we are confronted by 'paper and blockades' on an almost unprecedented scale, and by 'Milan' and 'Berlin' decrees, with 'orders in council, in reserve and in response thereto.
"Such a situation has got to work itself out; and, in my belief, can do so only through the complete exhaustion of those more immediately engaged. When that condition of exhaustion is fully developed the neutral powers, if in the interim they have held themselves in reserve, will be in a position effectively to intervene. The whole sea usage of nations, commonly known as 'international law,' will then have to undergo a process of fundamental revision. The basic principles only will be left; and a new system, which will include in my belief a world federation, an organized judicial tribunal and an international police must be evolved.
"This is a large contract; and yet the task is one to which both legislators and publicists cannot, I think, too soon or too seriously address themselves. A great educational process is involved, and cannot be prematurely entered upon; but the time and mode of action and concrete outcome are as yet hardly foreshadowed. Under the condition, therefore, which I have thus sought to outline, it seems to me that the present is a time when those who think and feel as I do should possess their souls with patience."
These are strong words. And although the time has not yet come when the definite line of action can even be foreshadowed, the people must get his inspiration. He believes that there will be a revision of international law and as has been said that there will be a world federation, a united states of the world to give expression of its rulings through an international court, with its decrees enforced by an international police force. It is going to take the sagacity of strong men to bring this stupendous achievement to pass. But because thoughtful people are beginning to think in this direction, this magnificent ideal is not an impossibility. It is to be prayed for, expected and worked for. And in every land the vision should now be given to the people.
