By his blood-red furrow, as of yore—
The fierce acre he tends, since, her theme in chief,
Story stained with him her leaf,
Nay, since when, come not-yet of age,
She but babbled her page—
Chance, long bygones before—
Heeled and flush, in his bruiser’s trim,
Howe’er wistful at core,
Walketh the War.
Never a laugh dares sport with him,
Only anon the luridest smile
Rallies his gloom awhile,
Ere it hang as before.

By the reek of his furrow—
Those dank pastures, whose soil,
Moistened by ages, augur his toil;
Which his scourge-hands have fed,
Whose come-up and store
Have quickened and bred
On his innings of yore,
On the blood-sweat and broil—
Still walketh the War;
Broad-cast flings his dripping grain,
Lest, unpurged of tare and weed,
God’s dear harvest come in vain,
While the Devil nurse his breed.

Lest, Earth’s Mighties, sick for more
Lack of grist to heap their store,
Sigh that Luck should be so out;
Why the slut so meanly heed
The sore measure of their need;
What blind Fates may be about?

While, perchance, the grim sower there,
Fierce and blood-strewing Mars,
Uneasy his honors wear,
Inglorious, the ancient scars,
And his weed-hands, the plain and dim,
Be not thought the husbands of Him,
He, who gathereth the stars.

Lest his tithe and offering, the War,
From a heart, thought inconstant and meek,
Appease not The Evermore;
And, in their hallowed and upward seek,
Less pious now than before,
The rue and the languishing grue,
The fall-away reek of the blood-laden stew,
Hit not His nostril, while gentler strife,
Cravens the breed of the eager life,
And, unearned, unworthy, her sober ease,
She yeaneth the Peace.

And still, by his furrow, lusting and grim,
While his seed-hand drips,
Sowing and reaping, tending his chore,
As he waileth his hymn—
That fierce dirge evermore
Blown hoarse from his lips—
Towers the War.
But who be the council and senate of him?
Who be his teamsmen, where be the whips?
There in the ghost-light, taunting and strange?
There where all visions pale them and range?
There where all time-light, tho’ vaunting its star,
The hushes come numbing, so voiceless and far?

Yet there, even there, evermore,
Since first streameth a dawn,
Hardy and wild, tho’ ungrown,
Tolling his death-song, muffling their lore,
The brave lyrics of life,
Speeds not the strife,
Stalks not the War?
As he moody fulfills those inscrutable Wills—
At one hand, the Spirit’s, on the other, the Sod’s,
That anointed of Gods;
Here, that fierce purger, the Truth’s,
There, the healing, the infinite Ruth’s,
Divinely at odds—
Those miracled Twain,
Deep-twinning, past name,
From whose life-streaming well,
Whose concept and womb,
Floweth birth-song and knell,
Issue cradle and tomb.

Here and there, evermore,
Since first lifted a prime,
And mortal with him,
Father Hazy, old Time,
Untokened and dim,
From the brood-mists of yore,
His chief breather was bore;
Craving and unsated still,
Feedeth the War.
On one hand, the God-will,
On the other, the Man’s,
Bounden a chooser, or liege to the chance?
Who shall assign it? Each where it fall?
Prove the parts from the Whole?
How may they plead—Doer, and deed?
Response, ’gainst the Call?
Is there a name for the appeal and the claim,
From the shaping to Shaper,
The Judger that scans,
While dim Fates yet fulfill,
Exalting ordain,
Thro’ the stress and the pain,
That high something, the Will,
Bid it rise to the answer,
Tho’ one with the Plan’s?

Ay,—shall the soul not be held to the vast reply?
Or, shall its dower of light,
Widowed of wonder, sad mate with the Night,
Like what fierce-flaunting Sun’s,
When its pomp is done,
Fail him and die?
Be the soul, its selfhood a dream,
But some phantom-fed gleam?
Past yon torches that burn,
Unbarred may no high suit go?
But beggared, unmorrowed, never to know,
Unvisioned etern,
Behold not, with humbled, tho’ how larger eyes,
The Fountains that rise?