Freedom, Truth and Beauty / Sonnets

Who is to rise and hurl God's flame world-wide,

As Lincoln hurled it, setting free a race

From Sphinx-shaped wrong—a beast with human face?

That shattered, how our land rose glorified

And, from the stars last laggard, soared, their guide!

Oh, who can take Promethean Lincoln's place,

To bring light where-so-ever he can trace

A Human, with his rights to soul denied?

He must be one, not only to illume

All ages, and not leave one region dim,

But at no height, allow his senses swim,

Or let mirages lure him with false bloom.

Lo! Here one comes with all the virtues prim

To hurl God's fire and end all human gloom.

'Tis Wilson takes God's flame from Lincoln's hand.

This Princeton man,—who has outgrown the prince,

A hundred years, and, in the ocean since,

Seen with delight, Eternity expand

And loom in glory from the despot's strand,—

Shapes fourteen dazzling bolts without a wince.

He pauses. Why not hurl them and convince

The world that, hence-forth, not one thrall shall stand?

What! Wilson's arm lacks strength to hurl the flame,

God gave to Lincoln for the Human race?

Look! Look! it falls. What! Gone? Quenched by dark space?

No; it describes an orbit there, the same

As comets, and regains its heavenly place

For one to hurl it true, and doom Earth's Shame.

In Wilson we beheld and proudly hailed

The World's Deliverer. In him, we saw

A luminous being rise from earth and draw

All lands above the clouds. We were regaled

With justice cascades flow, long ice impaled

Upon high mountains. Was not Nature's thaw

From his heart heat for truth, Eternal Law?

His was the heat of all the stars, he scaled.

Though his ascension was like Christ's, sublime

With lift of continents and every isle,

He, less than Christ, succumbed to Demon Guile.

Oh, God, that he should drop his mountain climb

Below sea-level, and let earth the while,

Fall back and settle in Primeval Slime!

Judging from Wilson's virile virtue-voice,

Whose whisper hushed Earth's Hum, were we not proud

To have him cross the sea to speak aloud

And, with a finger raised, hush battle noise,

And lift all lands to Justice's equipoise?

Oh, such his truth to God,—so oft avowed,—

A spirit thund'red from a luminous cloud:

"This man crowns Lincoln's work. All Men! Rejoice."

Oh, had he read his bible where St. Paul,

Grown man, put off child things—or, had not smiled,

When told, strong Ego oft, is man grown child!

Look! Who sees not an Epoch's Angel Fall

From hope for earth, in Wilson's truth, beguiled

By second childhood's toys to play with thrall?

Our Country still is in the womb, dark Time.

It shows life by its brisk and robust turns,

Which thrill the Mother, Liberty, who yearns

To see her man-child born. Oh, how sublime

With genius, not of one, but every climb

Where art forms beauty, or the spirit spurns

The foul and spurious,—her desire, that burns

Prenatally in him, to form him prime!

Oh People, all—Italian, Spanish, French,

Dutch, English, Irish, German, Jew, and Greek—

What see you, as you climb the Future's Peak?

Oh! no illusion. What looms there, shall wrench

From life, all monsters out from Hell, to seek

Dead consciences and plague earth with their stench.

Ascend, O Land of every Creed and Race!

Not thy full image, in New England's brook,

Nor in the South's lagoon; though there, a look

Delights us with thy chubby, infant face.

'Tis seas of joy, that shorelessly replace

The Ocean which, in time of old, forsook

The prairies for the cloud, or spring in nook,—

That show thee, Grown, through God's abundant grace.

From East to West, how joy's high seas expand,

Reflecting, not a foolish, mundane pride

That, thinking it does all, sets God aside—

But Virtue which, with heart and head and hand,

Works out God's purpose, with dear Christ for guide,

And holy spirits Light to understand!

All Virtues from the longing of the soul;

From wisdom, gained by sorrow through long ages;

From inspiration of the bards, in rages

That inter-marrying maniacs control

A people's life, and drain its sea to shoal,

And from the vision of sky-topping sages,

Gasping for breath from rot in all its stages,—

Aye, these and new-born Genius loom there Whole.

Look, People! Little less than God's own size,

Your virtues merge and, with speed God-ward, burn,

An unconsuming sun, that at no turn

In spiral flight, for still a grander rise,

Lets night advance where human Rights still yearn,

Except with great, new stars and dawning skys!

Behold two fleets, the one with woe for trail,

The other, rapture. As they sight the strait,

Through which but one can pass, Greed, urged by Hate,

Drives Thraldom's crafts with help of steam and gale.

They feel their way. The guns, with which they hale,

Raise jets, that look tall elms from Hope, the gate,

To Peace, the Palace; then, their speed is great,

Manoeuvering fast to head off, or assail.

Drawing the sea up for his driving steam,

Greed breaks all mirrors in his grand state room,

That show him dark inevitable doom,

Close hovering, and exults: "I am Supreme.

When seas lack water for my funnel fume,

I bid life send its every crimson stream."

What! in the darkness lowers boat after boat

From Freedom's fleet, and each with lightening oars?

Treasons to God and country are the rowers.

They are the Gold and Hireling Brain, that gloat

On conscience body with face down, afloat.

Why hail they Greed, to run on menial chores

From deck to deck, or to and from all shores?

Why? To ensure the payment of a note.

Meanwhile, brisk Freedom's fleets with justice manned,

And cosmic full momentum for their speed,

Confront the crafts, fired up by fiendish Greed.

A clash and—lo! they pass the strait and land,

Leaving in smoldering heaps, like autumn's weed,

The hulks of thrall along time's vultured strand.

Are lust for Gold and Power not hideous spawn

Of prehistoric reptiles, that had wings?

Where e'er those crawled, they chawed all greening things

And, when they mounted, how their lengths, full drawn,

Basked barren in the sun before the dawn,

Absorbing all its rays from budding Springs?

These drain life's dawn and by impoverishings,

Draw and reduce to pulp, frail Consciences.

Oh, yea, bewinged with legislative crime,

They bask in sunlight e'er the east sky greys,

And drag the soul of man from God's embrace

Of rights and freedom. Oh, how long a time

Shall reptiles, deadly to the Human race,

Be let grow wings and heavenward trail their slime?

The outlaws in our country are the wretches,

Who wreck the legislatures with their gold,

And with the ruins, form a high stronghold

To sally from, to what good nature fetches

From God to man. What though fine graphic sketches

In magazines show them with shoulders bold

Against the nights flood-gates of dark and cold?

All effort is but life in death-throw stretches.

They are the outlaws, who stop Nature's train

And take its corn and coal for selfish use;

Then, put their shoulders to Night's gate, to loose

Its hinges for a forty-day dark rain,

To drown all life, that they, like Noah, may cruise

Through thick drifts of the dead in heart and brain.

O heart and brain, who see the father load

His train with food, not for the few, but all,

And hear train-whistlings in March winds, jay call

And ground-hog sniffs! Haste out, for from the road

That leads to every Industry's abode,

The trust that, bat-eyed, comes out at night-fall,

Now moves the tracks inside his private wall,

Claiming all trains from God a debt long owed.

O heart and brain, it rest with you, how long

The legislative wreckers shall prevail.

Ye have the power to balk them. Why then, fail?

Regain your legislatures. Man them strong

And drive thence all sleek hounds, trust-trained to trail

Safe outlaws' paths to fastnesses of wrong.

Was ever such unblushing harlotry,

Such sale of virtue in the Market place,

As by the Press? The red paint on her face

Is Degradation's mark. Alas, that she,

Born to bring forth the truth, still, is so base,

She kills her child and, then, to hide all trace,

Cracks bone by bone to dust, too fine to see.

O Press, poor harlot of the tyrant, Gold,

What freedom, but from truth, hast thou to boast?

Hark, who now speaks is murdered Truth's pale ghost:

"Conceiving life—oh, bring it forth! aye, hold

Thy child on high with love, as priest, the Host!

Crush not its bones, with smile and eyes set cold."

What is the truth? The focus of all rays

Passing through Nature and the soul and mind.

It is the Sun of Suns, around which wind

The Heavens and all the worlds. Such is its blaze,

That had it not, at intervals, a haze,

Grading both Angel and the Human-kind,

The bright Arch-angel would be stricken blind,

To grope in Heaven, a Homer, sighing lays.

What less could fitly crown Omnipotence

Than Truth, the focus of all rays in Good?

Lo! there it shines upon the Holy Rood,

Breaking through clouds, a-massing dark and dense

From countless ages, Cains to Brotherhood—

With rays of pardon for the World's offense.

"Forgive them, Sire! They know not what they do."—

Ah, Christ! how at that face to face God-plea,

The Demon and his legions, mocking thee

With every generation, brought to view,

Flashed with dismay, and, boltless lightening through

The ages, thunder down Eternity,

'Till faint as the sound in shells, far from the sea;

For that thy prayer would be vouchsafed, they knew.

All grandeurs, gathered as a dazzling crown

For thee, in barter for thy knee's least bend,

The Demon dashed to fragments to Time's end.

There, born anew in spirit, we look down

And, in the ocean of thy prayer, Amen'd,

See but earth's monsters, with the demons drown.

Thought is truth's echo—not her glorious eyes

Beholding God, nor her white arms of light,

Lifted in worship. Following truth, our flight

At highest range is where our echo dies.

Oh all your power and beauty, earth and skys!

And, Soul and Mind! your Beauty and your Might—

Truth gathers in one flash and, catching sight

Of God, lifts high in love's full sacrifice.

Twixt Truth and Thought, what Truth is oft is space

Wherein, with intuition for her wing,

The soul mounts. It is there I hear her sing:

"Lo, Truth, so swift aloft, Thought dies in chase,

Turns earthward, and the gifts her white arms bring,

Are outshone by God's glory in her face!"

Ah, what is Heaven? Such Glory that Sun-light

Seems darkness, and Mass Music, shell-shut sound.

What we call senses here, there so abound,

The soul appears a broadening heaven in flight,

Feathered and downed with all the stars, whose white

Is all hues mingled. Oh, the awe profound!

For every moment there, new Heavens astound

The myriad senses, with God's Love and Might.

If "Holy, Holy, Holy, Evermore?"

Be the one chant of angel and of Saint

Before the Throne, it is their gaspings faint

Between their transports to high Heavens from lower;

For, what is love's eternal Firmament

But Heaven on Heaven, that we may ceaseless soar?

Was not humility the Earthward stair

From highest Heaven, by which God came to men,

To show the way aloft to human ken?

Ah, by what other pass, are men to fare

Through mist and cloud, except the path, aflare

With his blest steps from Heaven, and up again?

Steps, not from star to star, but fen to fen,

That all might follow and not one despair!

Oh, steps of Love! Could we reach with our eyes

Their fulgence, we would shrink back with dismay;

For, though 'tis through the world's contempt move they—

Hark! How the hidden choirs of countless skies

Chant at all heights: "Lo, God comes by this way,

And makes world-wide, His stair to Paradise!"

A cataract of stars, which, with each fall

Broadens and brightens, rapturing the sight

Of angel hosts, that view it from the height

Of knowledge of God's love for one and all

His creatures—and not darkness to appal

The spirit by the quench of every light,

For which God grants it vision—is the night

Of Life's strange mysteries, both great and small.

Oh cataracts, beyond the angels' count,

Pause and shine pendant over every deep

Of heart, mind, spirit! Lo! how down they sweep

To basic Good where, massing, they remount,

Till, mid God's "Many Mansions," high they leap,

Forming forever, joy's most splendent fount!

When, at God's fiat, Light flashed forth, the beam

Evolved a million pigments, as it sped

To every nature. Now, of all its spread,

What shaft so glorious as the poet's dream

Which, mote and mass, reflects the Will Supreme

That life is progress, and by flight, or tread,

It circles God-ward up, till perfected!

For, harboring meaner thought were to blaspheme.

What, if the world be chaos where it sins,

Race feuds, Creed hatreds, falsehoods gross, deceit,

Intrigue and greed, form swirling, blinding sleet?

Honor and Truth, though buried to their chins,

Look up and smile; for, though the storms still beat,

The poets show 'tis Spring, not Winter, wins.

Not mine the night that creeps beneath Life's sea,

Or lurks within Hope's ruins, sunk below

The desert, or the stagnant pool—oh, no!

But night that mounts the heavens, till it is free

Where stars, prefiguring all things that be

Obscure on earth, catch sight of God and glow,

And golden shadows large and larger grow,

Cast by Gift-bearers to Humanity.

Oh, once the cold of all the unsunn'd space

Was in my reptile life of soul, wing-bound;

But now, soul-free, what warmth from stars all round!

'Tis not by strength of mine, Lord, but thy grace,

My soul soars from the depths of sea, or ground,

Till, at star-heights, it meets Thee, face to face!

What but the spirit's ladder to God's throne

Is beauty? Oh, from rung to rung to climb,

Till faint becomes the azure's anthem chime

Of planets, multitudinous, or lone,

And Inspiration, drunk with fragrance, blown

From God's rare, inmost garden, wall'd from Time,

Sets free the Sonnet with is wings of rhyme

To carry down the transport, upward known!

Mine is no swaying ladder, like the sea's,

Whose rounds of rollers, raised above Sun-rise,

Lean not on Heaven, hence shattered lie at noon;

For 'tis set firmly on the verities,

Which form God's throne. Ah, there, what joy, my prize!

Would that I had a dove for every boon!

The Sun is God's great joy to Human sight.

Oh, up and off in chariots, Sea! and ride,

All generations, up, till mountain-eyed,

To welcome earth-ward, God's Supreme delight.

Imagination swirls in swallow flight,

Giddy with Beauty, deepening—Oh, how glide

From star to star, to the haloes, season-dyed

And countless! Its wings shrivel up like night.

Oh, yea, the Sun in one subliming rise

From Wisdom's infinite mind! This Reason knows.

It has no set. There, Sense, with weals or woes

For beads, or fingers, count our shuts of eyes,

Excluding Knowledge. What! God's joy to close

And all its goodness break and drift cloud-wise?

There are two darknesses; one where the Lord

Hides beauty—that by which men know His face.

All, in that darkness, feel His fingers trace

Their features gently, and their hearts record

The feeling, as of one, whose eyes, restored,

Would see, but for the Father's close embrace.

The other is the outer dark—a place

Where hate turns black the light upon it poured.

O God! the only darkness that I dread,

Is where Thou art not—that where Hate's black fire

Surmounts the heavens, to burst with thunder dire

And, in its fall forever, drag the dead

Of heart and spirit—those whom Thy desire

Would fain have made the halo round Thy head.

A spirit passed the Sun, the Moon and Star,

And dwelled and dreamed in darkness all its own.

The music of the spheres, though thither blown,

As faint as fragrance from a flower afar,

Disturbed this spirit's ear, attuned to jar

Of orb with orb; for hate of light, truth known,

Fashions hot worlds which, cooled to clay and stone,

Clash, rising toward calm Heaven, which they would mar.

Ah, if where love was not, he smiled elate,

His smile at God returned, a lightening flash

That shattered him. He saw his planets clash,

Burst and, then, by the downward law of hate,

Sink and leave not a single spark, nor ash,

For the new firmament he would create.

There are two Gods—one, Good, the other, Ill.

They clash in Nature—so the Persian taught,

And long a sect in Europe spread the thought.

Why there is evil is a problem still

To many, who see not in Human Will,

A being that with beauty could have caught

Up to his Maker, had he gladly wrought

With light and warmth, instead of dark and chill.

God said, "Let there be Light," and light was made.

God made not darkness—that is light's exclusion,

Forming a region where, in wild confusion,

Men, Nations, each a ferret, blood-eyed shade,

Worry each other, till, with disillusion

For lamp, comes conscience, crying, "God Betrayed!"

Ah, in the angel-fall from Heaven, is hope?

The wing-whir discord of the legion's fall

From God forever, mocks my heart's loud call.

Empty of beauty from its base to cope,

The Earth is hollow. Where, then, can I grope

And not be met by echoes that appal?

What! shouts my mind, in wonder that I crawl

And, having skyey wings, in hollows mope.

Does scent from bloom, or warble from the wood,

Not atmosphere the un-aerial void

Twixt thee and beauty, which thy youth enjoyed?

Fly back to earth, by memory renewed;

She fills the hollow, echoing hosts destroyed,—

With Spring, reflecting Heaven's Triumphant Good.

O beauty! in the dimple of thy cheek,

My love could live forever and be blest.

There, with the sun, a rose-bud on thy breast,

How thou rejoicest, hastening to speak

To thy fond Father! Oh, how vain to seek

A sweeter refuge for the Spirit's rest,

Than mid thy blushes, when thou marvelest

At His great love, for, oh! thy heart is meek.

Oh beauty! in thy Father's arms, thou art.

Enclose me in thy dimple; for, though this

Were but a bud, or molded seed, what bliss

To watch bloom gather scent, or new life start,

And hear our Father, bending for a kiss,

Whisper to thee, the secrets of His heart!

Beauty is love and, hence is heightening fire,

Consuming Nature. All the dark can bring

To quench it, feeds it. Look! how everything

Is caught in the blaze, which mounts up high and higher!

Oh! truly, 'tis a vision to inspire

The soul with transport, more than joy can sing;

For, if not for the blaze, what cold would sting

Poor mortals, who crowd round it, nigh and nigher!

Is beauty not the camp-fire, which one host

Leaves burning for another, close behind?

Yea, yea, the Powers Divine, O Human Kind!

Have left their camp-fire burning on the coast,

Where they embarked from glimpse of Human mind,

To give you warmth and light to hold your post.

All beings, legioning celestial light,

Moved in procession toward a vacant throne.

Their chant was faith and hope, as, now, our own.

At last, it came to pass, their faith grew sight.

They saw One Star in night's down-fall, stay white

And, by the Holy Spirit brighter blown,

Ascend in Heaven, till there, as high and lone,

As over Nature's marveling zenith height.

Reaching the throne, its queen, this star became.

Awed by the Triune's Honor as her crown,

The legions, circling, soared with eyes cast down;

But, when their wonder heard the strange, new name

In Heaven, from Christ's lips, "Mother," how they shone,

Reflecting Christ's child-eyes, with love aflame!

Lo! God lets drop blue doves which ground the mind

Like clover; then, with drawing to the skies,

His pleasure is to watch the flocks arise.

Here, there, they mount; they show no cloud, no wind,

Can hinder homing; and the angels find

No transport, like the sight, for, to their eyes,

'Tis more souls for the joy, which glorifies

The Father, traced to love by pigeon-kind.

Oh, to his love, how great our spirit's worth!

Each is as all. In heaven, no heart still heaves.

The sun sinks with its last of lingering eves,

And, then, if dearest doves of azure birth,

Wife, parent, child, be missed, off mercy leaves

With stars for eyes, to search the darks of earth.

This temple is soul-startling. 'Tis to me

A thunder storm in stone, with Sinai flare

Across the Ages. 'Tis the Fiend's despair

And the Arch-angel's Triumph. It sets free

The mind and soul with certitude, Christ's key

Which, like the Sun, opes Heaven—the Good and Fair.

Still, oft, what darkness drowns the sun's noon glare

Within the Temple! 'Tis from Calvary.

Oh, 'tis from Calvary's grief. 'Tis Christ's emotion,

On from the Cross, that from His glory known,

The German should have fled and, frantic, thrown

Away his soul to Strauss or Kant's vague notion,

Unhumaning, till, in the Kaiser, grown

A Nietzsche whirl-wind in a crimson ocean.

With heart pain and with quiver of the lip,

I bid my boy "good bye," with words of cheer.

I hug him to my heart to hide a tear,

And hold him close so long, that no tongue-slip

Could more betray my bodings for his ship,

Or troop, when landed. It is when I hear

My daughters' voices, that I shame off fear

And take my boy's both hands with firmest grip.

Go, son, and, though with thy young life 'tis blown,

Blare thou the Bugle, rousing man to sweep

The monsters back to Hell's profoundest deep,

Where, mocking Spring and Sun-rise, they have grown

On longings for the sea, the world must weep

When, from its heart, the hope of Peace has flown.

Dost thou, mad Kaiser, for historic name,

Set fire to Europe? Is it joy to gaze

At blacker smoke than Etna's, and a blaze

That wakes up Chaos, wild to come and claim

The World, since Light, God-bidden though it came,

Has failed to dawn upon our human ways?

O Twin of Chaos! peer thou through the haze!

'Tis Human Beings feed the crackling flame.

Beware, the smoke, like Etna's, is the curse

Of widows on thy people-dooming throne,

And in no country, more than in thine own,

Cry out all mothers: "Wherefore bear and nurse?

To feed war with our sons, our flesh and bone,

That chaos may reclaim the Universe?"

The German mother has too long been what

A Chancellor once called the "Kingdom's Cow."

Ah, as she bears the droves for slaughter, how

Her dumb-beast eyes crave pity for her lot!

See, there she smiles, like loving God forgot—

All His supernal patience on her brow.

How long must her grand arch of brain, as now,

Bear up a universe "of what should not"?

There, lies she, crushed by troops in hot pursuit

Of mocking shadows; for be Gain complete,

What is it but twin brother to defeat?

Stand up the dead on any bloody route.

Stoop for no kiss from orphans, at thy feet,

O Triumph! for ash-cord is all thy fruit.

O fair, full moon! I look close at thy face.

Thou must be happy, being in the skys;

And, yet, thy flush grows pallor to mine eyes.

Thou art as one, who breathless after chase,

Would rest, but dreads to check her onward pace.

O fugitive from where no fledgling flies,

No bee finds bud, and where red billows rise,

Engulfing down dark years, the Human Race!

O thou pale moon, who hast companioned Man

Through every darkness since the night's first fall!

Hast thou, along thy foot-worn, azure wall,

Ever seen seas so hard for hope to span,

As this red surge, that in a spring so small,

A bird could beak it up, its flood began?