REALITIES

REALITIES

  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!"