A MAN MUST LIVE.
A man must live. We justify
Low shift and trick to treason high,
A little vote for a little gold
To a whole senate bought and sold,
By that self-evident reply.
But is it so? Pray tell me why
Life at such cost you have to buy?
In what religion were you told
A man must live?
There are times when a man must die.
Imagine, for a battle-cry,
From soldiers, with a sword to hold,—
From soldiers, with the flag unrolled,—
This coward’s whine, this liar’s lie,—
A man must live!
IN DUTY BOUND.
In duty bound, a life hemmed in
Whichever way the spirit turns to look;
No chance of breaking out, except by sin;
Not even room to shirk—
Simply to live, and work.
An obligation pre-imposed, unsought,
Yet binding with the force of natural law;
The pressure of antagonistic thought;
Aching within, each hour,
A sense of wasting power.
A house with roof so darkly low
The heavy rafters shut the sunlight out;
One cannot stand erect without a blow;
Until the soul inside
Cries for a grave—more wide.
A consciousness that if this thing endure,
The common joys of life will dull the pain;
The high ideals of the grand and pure
Die, as of course they must,
Of long disuse and rust.
That is the worst. It takes supernal strength
To hold the attitude that brings the pain;
And they are few indeed but stoop at length
To something less than best,
To find, in stooping, rest.
DESIRE.
Lo, I desire! Sum of the ages’ growth—
Fruit of evolving—king of life—
I, holding in myself the outgrown past
In all its ever-rising forms—desire.
With the first grass-blade, I desire the sun;
With every bird that breathes, I love the air;
With fishes, joy in water; with my horse,
Exult in motion; with all living flesh,
Long for sweet food and warmth and mate and young;
With the whole rising tide of that which is,
Thirst for advancement,—crave and yearn for it!
Yea, I desire! Then the compelling will
Urges to action to attain desire.
What action? Which desire? Am I a plant,
Rooted and helpless, following the light
Without volition? Or am I a beast,
Led by desire into the hunter’s snare?
Am I a savage, swayed by every wish,
Brutal and feeble, a ferocious child?
Stand back, Desire, and put your plea in words.
No wordless wailing for the summer moon,
No Gilpin race on some strong appetite,
Stand here before the King, and make your plea.
If Reason sees it just, you have your wish;
If not, your wish is vain, plead as you will.
The court is open, beggar! I am King!
WHY NOT?
Why not look forward far as Plato looked
And see the beauty of our coming life,
As he saw that which might be ours to-day?
If his soul, then, could rise so far beyond
The brutal average of that old time,
When icy peaks of art stood sheer and high
In fat black valleys where the helot toiled;
If he, from that, could see so far ahead,
Could forecast days when Love and Justice both
Should watch the cradle of a healthy child,
And Wisdom walk with Beauty and pure Joy
In all the common ways of daily life,—
Then may not we, from great heights hardly won,
Bright hills of liberty, broad plains of peace,
And flower-sweet valleys of warm human love,
Still broken by the chasms of despair
Where Poverty and Ignorance and Sin
Pollute the air of all,—why not, from this,
Look on as Plato looked, and see the day
When his Republic and our Heaven, joined,
Shall make life what God meant it?
Ay, we do!
OUT OF THE GATE.
Out of the glorious city gate
A great throng came.
A mighty throng that swelled and grew
Around a face that all men knew—
A man who bore a noted name—
Gathered to listen to his fate.
The Judge sat high. Unbroken black
Around, above, and at his back.
The people pressed for nearer place,
Longing, yet shamed, to watch that face;
And in a space before the throne
The prisoner stood, unbound, alone.
So thick they rose on every side,
There was no spot his face to hide.
Then came the Herald, crying clear,
That all the listening crowd should hear;
Crying aloud before the sun
What thing this fallen man had done.
He—who had held a ruler’s place
Among them, by their choice and grace—
He—fallen lower than the dust—
Had sinned against his public trust!
The Herald ceased. The Poet arose,
The Poet, whose awful art now shows
To this poor heart, and heart of every one,
The horror of the thing that he had done.
“O Citizen! Dweller in this high place!
Son of the city! Sharer in its pride!
Born in the light of its fair face!
By it fed, sheltered, taught, and glorified!
Raised to pure manhood by thy city’s care;
Made strong and beautiful and happy there;
Loving thy mother and thy father more
For the fair town which made them glad before;
Finding among its maidens thy sweet wife;
Owing to it thy power and place in life;
Raised by its people to the lofty stand
Where thou couldst execute their high command;
Trusted and honored, lifted over all,—
So honored and so trusted, didst thou fall!
Against the people—who gave thee the power—
Thou hast misused it in an evil hour!
Against the city where thou owest all all—
Thy city, man, within whose guarding wall
Lie all our life’s young glories—ay, the whole!
The home and cradle of the human soul!
Against thy city, beautiful and strong,
Thou, with the power it gave, hast done this wrong!”
Then rose the Judge. “Prisoner, thy case was tried
Fairly and fully in the courts inside.
Thy guilt was proven, and thou hast confessed,
And now the people’s voice must do the rest.
I speak the sentence which the people give:
It is permitted thee to freely live,
Redeem thy sin by service to the state,
But nevermore within this city’s gate!”
Back rolled the long procession, sad and slow,
Back where the city’s thousand banners blow.
The solemn music rises glad and clear
When the great gates before them open near,
Rises in triumph, sinks to sweet repose,
When the great gates behind them swing and close.
Free stands the prisoner, with a heart of stone.
The city gate is shut. He is alone.
THE MODERN SKELETON.
As kings of old in riotous royal feasts,
Among the piled up roses and the wine,
Wild music and soft-footed dancing girls,
The pearls and gold and barbarous luxury,
Used to show also a white skeleton,—
To make life meeker in the sight of death,
To make joy sweeter by the thought thereof,—
So our new kings in their high banqueting,
With the electric lustre unforeseen,
And unimagined costliness of flowers;
Rich wines of price and food as rare as gems,
And all the wondrous waste of artifice;
Midst high-bred elegance and jewelled ease
And beauty of rich raiment; they should set,
High before all, a sickly pauper child,
To keep the rich in mind of poverty,—
The sure concomitant of their estate.
THE LESSON OF DEATH.
TO S. T. D.
In memory of one whose breath
Blessed all with words wise, loving, brave;
Whose life was service, and whose death
Unites our hearts around her grave.
Another blow has fallen, Lord—
Was it from thee?
Is it indeed thy fiery sword
That cuts our hearts? We know thy word;
We know by heart wherein it saith
“Whom the Lord loves he chasteneth”—
But also, in another breath,
This: “The wages of sin is death.”
How may we tell what pain is good,
In mercy sent?
And what is evil through and through,
Sure consequence of what we do,
Sure product of thy broken laws,
Certain effect of given cause,
Just punishment?
Not sin of those who suffer, Lord—
To them no shame.
For father’s sins our children die
With Justice sitting idly by;
The guilty thrive nor yet repent,
While sorrow strikes the innocent—
Whom shall we blame?
’Tis not that one alone is dead,
And these bereft.
For her, for them, we grieve indeed;
But there are other hearts that bleed!
All up and down the world so wide
We suffer, Lord, on every side,—
We who are left.
See now, we bend our stricken hearts,
Patient and still,
Knowing thy laws are wholly just,
Knowing thy love commands our trust,
Knowing that good is God alone,
That pain and sorrow are our own,
And seeking out of all our pain
To struggle up to God again—
Teach us thy will!
When shall we learn by common joy
Broad as the sun,
By common effort, common fear,
All common life that holds us near,
And this great bitter common pain
Coming again and yet again—
That we are one?
Yea, one. We cannot sin apart,
Suffer alone;
Nor keep our goodness to ourselves
Like precious things on hidden shelves.
Because we each live not our best,
Some one must suffer for the rest—
For we are one!
Our pain is but the voice of wrong—
Lord, help us hear!
Teach us to see the truth at last,
To mend our future from our past,
To know thy laws and find them friends,
Leading us safe to lovely ends,
Thine own hand near.
Not one by doing right alone
Can mend the way;
But we must all do right together,—
Love, help, and serve each other, whether
We joy or suffer. So at last
Shall needless pain and death be past,
And we, thy children living here,
Be worthy of our father dear!
God speed the day!
Oh, help us, Father, from this loss
To learn thy will!
So shall our lost one live again;
So shall her life not pass in vain;
So shall we show in better living—
In loving, helping, doing, giving—
That she lives still!
FOR US.
If we have not learned that God’s in man,
And man in God again;
That to love thy God is to love thy brother,
And to serve the Lord is to serve each other,—
Then Christ was born in vain!
If we have not learned that one man’s life
In all men lives again;
That each man’s battle, fought alone,
Is won or lost for every one,—
Then Christ hath lived in vain!
If we have not learned that death’s no break
In life’s unceasing chain;
That the work in one life well begun
In others is finished, by others is done,—
Then Christ hath died in vain!
If we have not learned of immortal life,
And a future free from pain;
The kingdom of God in the heart of man,
And the living world on Heaven’s plan,—
Then Christ arose in vain!
THANKSGIVING.
Well is it for the land whose people, yearly,
Turn to the Giver of all Good with praise,
Chanting glad hymns that thank him, loudly, clearly,
Rejoicing in the beauty of his ways.
Great name that means all perfectness and power!
We thank thee—not for mercy, nor release,
But for clear joy in sky and sea and flower,
In thy pure justice, and thy blessed peace.
We live; behind us the dark past; before,
A wide way full of light that thou dost give;
More light, more strength, more joy and ever more—
O God of joy! we thank thee that we live!
CHRISTMAS HYMN.
Listen not to the word that would have you believe
That the voice of the age is a moan;
That the red hand of wrong
Is triumphant and strong,
And that wrong is triumphant alone;
There was never a time on the face of the earth
When love was so near its own.
Do you think that the love which has died for the world
Has not lived for the world also?
Filling man with the fire
Of a boundless desire
To love all with a love that shall grow?
It was not for nothing the White Christ was born
Two thousand years ago.
The power that gave birth to the Son of the King
All life doth move and thrill,
Every age as ’tis passed
Coming nearer at last
To the law of that wonderful will,—
As our God so loved the world that day,
Our God so loves it still.
The love that fed poverty, making it thrive,
Is learning a lovelier way.
We have seen that the poor
Need be with us no more,
And that sin may be driven away;
The love that has carried the martyrs to death
Is entering life to-day.
The spirit of Christ is awake and alive,
In the work of the world it is shown,
Crying loud, crying clear,
That the Kingdom is here,
And that all men are heirs to the throne!
There was never a time since the making of man
When love was so near its own!
CHRISTMAS.
Slow, slow and weak,
As first the tongue began to speak,
The hand to serve, the heart to feel,
Grew up among our mutual deeds,
Great flower out-topping all the weeds,
Sweet fruit that meets all human needs,
Our love—our common weal.
It spread so wide, so high,
We saw it broad against the sky,
Down shining where we trod;
It stormed our new-born consciousness,
Omnipotent to heal and bless,
Till we conceived—we could no less,
It was the love of God!
Came there a man at length
Whose heart so swelled with the great strength
Of love that would have way,
That in his body he fulfilled
The utmost service love had willed;
And the great stream, so held, so spilled,
Pours on until to-day.
Still we look back to this grand dream,
Still stoop to drink at this wide stream,
Wider each year we live;
And on one yearly blessed day,
Seek not to earn and not to pay,
But to let love have its one way,—
To quench our thirst to give!
Brothers, cease not to bless the name
Of him who loved through death and shame,
We cannot praise amiss;
But not in vain was sown the seed;
Look wide where thousands toil and bleed,
Where men meet death for common need—
Hath no man loved but this?
Yea, all men love; we love to-day
Wide as the human race has sway,
Ever more deep, more dear;
No stream,—an everlasting sea,
Beating and throbbing to be free,
To give it forth there needs must be
One Christmas all the year!
THE LIVING GOD.
The Living God. The God that made the world
Made it, and stood aside to watch and wait,
Arranging a predestined plan
To save the erring soul of man—
Undying destiny—unswerving fate.
I see his hand in the path of life,
His law to doom and save,
His love divine in the hopes that shine
Beyond the sinner’s grave,
His care that sendeth sun and rain,
His wisdom giving rest,
His price of sin that we may not win
The heaven of the blest.
Not near enough! Not clear enough!
O God, come nearer still!
I long for thee! Be strong for me!
Teach me to know thy will!
The Living God. The God that makes the world,
Makes it—is making it in all its worth;
His spirit speaking sure and slow
In the real universe we know,—
God living in the earth.
I feel his breath in the blowing wind,
His pulse in the swinging sea,
And the sunlit sod is the breast of God
Whose strength we feel and see.
His tenderness in the springing grass,
His beauty in the flowers,
His living love in the sun above,—
All here, and near, and ours!
Not near enough! Not clear enough!
O God, come nearer still!
I long for thee! Be strong for me!
Teach me to know thy will!
The Living God. The God that is the world.
The world? The world is man,—the work of man.
Then—dare I follow what I see?—
Then—by thy Glory—it must be
That we are in thy plan?
That strength divine in the work we do?
That love in our mothers’ eyes?
That wisdom clear in our thinking here?
That power to help us rise?
God in the daily work we’ve done,
In the daily path we’ve trod?
Stand still, my heart, for I am a part—
I too—of the Living God!
Ah, clear as light! As near! As bright!
O God! My God! My Own!
Command thou me! I stand for thee!
And I do not stand alone!
A PRAYER.
O God! I cannot ask thee to forgive;
I have done wrong.
Thy law is just; thy law must live,—
Whoso doth wrong must suffer pain.
But help me to do right again,—
Again be strong.
GIVE WAY!
Shall we not open the human heart,
Swing the doors till the hinges start;
Stop our worrying doubt and din,
Hunting heaven and dodging sin?
There is no need to search so wide,
Open the door and stand aside—
Let God in!
Shall we not open the human heart
To loving labor in field and mart;
Working together for all about,
The glad, large labor that knows not doubt?
Can He be held in our narrow rim?
Do the work that is work for Him—
Let God out!
Shall we not open the human heart,
Never to close and stand apart?
God is a force to give way to!
God is a thing you have to do!
God can never be caught by prayer,
Hid in your heart and fastened there—
Let God through!
THANKSGIVING HYMN.
FOR CALIFORNIA.
Our forefathers gave thanks to God,
In the land by the stormy sea,
For bread hard wrung from the iron sod
In cold and misery.
Though every day meant toil and strife,
In the land by the stormy sea,
They thanked their God for the gift of life—
How much the more should we!
Stern frost had they full many a day,
Strong ice on the stormy sea,
Long months of snow, gray clouds hung low,
And a cold wind endlessly;
Winter, and war with an alien race—
But they were alive and free!
And they thanked their God for his good grace—
How much the more should we!
For we have a land all sunny with gold,—
A land by the summer sea;
Gold in the earth for our hands to hold,
Gold in blossom and tree;
Comfort, and plenty, and beauty, and peace,
From the mountains down to the sea.
They thanked their God for a year’s increase—
How much the more should we!
CHRISTMAS CAROL.
FOR LOS ANGELES.
On the beautiful birthday of Jesus,
While the nations praising stand,
He goeth from city to city,
He walketh from land to land.
And the snow lies white and heavy,
And the ice lies wide and wan,
But the love of the blessed Christmas
Melts even the heart of man.
With love from the heart of Heaven,
In the power of his Holy Name,
To the City of the Queen of the Angels
The tender Christ-child came.
The land blushed red with roses,
The land laughed glad with grain,
And the little hills smiled softly
In the freshness after rain.
Land of the fig and olive!
Land of the fruitful vine!
His heart grew soft within him,
As he thought of Palestine,—
Of the brooks with the banks of lilies,
Of the little doves of clay,
And of how he sat with his mother
At the end of a summer’s day,
His head on his mother’s bosom,
His hand in his mother’s hand,
Watching the golden sun go down
Across the shadowy land,—
A moment’s life with human kind;
A moment,—nothing more;
Eternity lies broad behind,
Eternity before.
High on the Hills of Heaven,
Majestic, undefiled,
Forever and ever he lives, a God;
But once he lived, a Child!
And the child-heart leaps within him,
And the child-eyes softer grow,
When the land lies bright and sunny,
Like the land of long ago;
And the love of God is mingled
With the love of dear days gone,
When he comes to the city of his mother,
On the day her child was born!
NEW DUTY.
Once to God we owed it all,—
God alone;
Bowing in eternal thrall,
Giving, sacrificing all,
Before the Throne.
Once we owed it to the King,—
Served the crown;
Life, and love, and everything,
In allegiance to the King,
Laying down.
Now we owe it to Mankind,—
To our Race;
Fullest fruit of soul and mind,
Heart and hand and all behind,
Now in place.
Loving-service, wide and free,
From the sod
Up in varying degree,
Through me and you—through you and me—
Up to God!
SEEKING.
I went to look for Love among the roses, the roses,
The pretty wingèd boy with the arrow and the bow;
In the fair and fragrant places,
’Mid the Muses and the Graces,
At the feet of Aphrodite, with the roses all aglow.
Then I sought among the shrines where the rosy flames were leaping—
The rose and golden flames, never ceasing, never still—
For the boy so fair and slender,
The imperious, the tender,
With the whole world moving slowly to the music of his will.
Sought, and found not for my seeking, till the sweet quest led me further,
And before me rose the temple, marble-based and gold above,
Where the long procession marches
’Neath the incense-clouded arches
In the world-compelling worship of the mighty God of Love.
Yea, I passed with bated breath to the holiest of holies,
And I lifted the great curtain from the Inmost,—the Most Fair,—
Eager for the joy of finding,
For the glory, beating, blinding,
Meeting but an empty darkness; darkness, silence—nothing there.
Where is Love? I cried in anguish, while the temple reeled and faded;
Where is Love?—for I must find him, I must know and understand!
Died the music and the laughter,
Flames and roses dying after,
And the curtain I was holding fell to ashes in my hand.
FINDING.
Out of great darkness and wide wastes of silence,
Long loneliness, and slow untasted years,
Came a slow filling of the empty places,
A slow, sweet lighting of forgotten faces,
A smiling under tears.
A light of dawn that filled the brooding heaven,
A warmth that kindled all the earth and air,
A thrilling tender music, floating, stealing,
A fragrance of unnumbered flowers revealing
A sweetness new and fair.
After the loss of love where I had sought him,
After the anguish of the empty shrine,
Came a warm joy from all the hearts around me,
A feeling that some perfect strength had found me,
Touch of the hand divine.
I followed Love to his intensest centre,
And lost him utterly when fastened there;
I let him go and ceased my selfish seeking,
Turning my heart to all earth’s voices speaking,
And found him everywhere.
Love like the rain that falls on just and unjust,
Love like the sunshine, measureless and free,
From each to all, from all to each, to live in;
And, in the world’s glad love so gladly given,
Came heart’s true love to me!
TOO MUCH.
There are who die without love, never seeing
The clear eyes shining, the bright wings fleeing.
Lonely they die, and ahungered, in bitterness knowing
They have not had their share of the good there was going.
There are who have and lose love, these most blessed,
In joy unstained which they have once possessed,
Lost while still dear, still sweet, still met by glad affection,—
An endless happiness in recollection.
And some have Love’s full cup as he doth give it—
Have it, and drink of it, and, ah,—outlive it!
Full fed by Love’s delights, o’erwearied, sated,
They die, not hungry—only suffocated.
THE CUP.
And yet, saith he, ye need but sip;
And who would die without a taste?
Just touch the goblet to the lip,
Then let the bright draught run to waste!
She set her lip to the beaker’s brim—
’Twas passing sweet! ’Twas passing mild!
She let her large eyes dwell on him,
And sipped again, and smiled.
So sweet! So mild! She scarce can tell
If she doth really drink or no;
Till the light doth fade and the shadows swell,
And the goblet lieth low.
O cup of dreams! O cup of doubt!
O cup of blinding joy and pain!
The taste that none would die without!
The draught that all the world must drain!
WHAT THEN?
Suppose you write your heart out till the world
Sobs with one voice—what then?
Small agonies that round your heart-strings curled
Strung out for choice, that men
May pick a phrase, each for his own pet pain,
And thank the voice so come,
They being dumb. What then?
You have no sympathy? O endless claim!
No one that cares? What then?
Suppose you had—the whole world knew your name
And your affairs, and men
Ached with your headache, dreamed your dreadful dreams,
And, with your heart-break due,
Their hearts broke too. What then?
You think that people do not understand?
You suffer? Die? What then?
Unhappy child, look here, on either hand,
Look low or high,—all men
Suffer and die, and keep it to themselves!
They die—they suffer sore—
You suffer more? What then?
OUR LONELINESS.
There is no deeper grief than loneliness.
Our sharpest anguish at the death of friends
Is loneliness. Our agony of heart
When love has gone from us is loneliness.
The crying of a little child at night
In the big dark is crowding loneliness.
Slow death of woman on a Kansas farm;
The ache of those who think beyond their time;
Pain unassuaged of isolated lives,—
All this is loneliness.
Oh, we who are one body of one soul!
Great soul of man born into social form!
Should we not suffer at dismemberment?
A finger torn from brotherhood; an eye
Having no cause to see when set alone.
Our separation is the agony
Of uses unfulfilled—of thwarted law;
The forces of all nature throb and push,
Crying for their accustomed avenues;
And we, alone, have no excuse to be,—
No reason for our being. We are dead
Before we die, and know it in our hearts.
Even the narrowest union has some joy,
Transient and shallow, limited and weak;
And joy of union strengthens with its strength,
Deepens and widens as the union grows.
Hence the pure light of long-enduring love,
Lives blended slowly, softly, into one.
Hence civic pride, and glory in our states,
And the fierce thrill of patriotic fire
When millions feel as one!
When we shall learn
To live together fully; when each man
And woman works in conscious interchange
With all the world,—union as wide as man,—
No human soul can ever suffer more
The devastating grief of loneliness.
THE KEEPER OF THE LIGHT.
A lighthouse keeper with a loving heart
Toiled at his service in the lonely tower,
Keeping his giant lenses clear and bright,
And feeding with pure oil the precious light
Whose power to save was as his own heart’s power.
He loved his kind, and being set alone
To help them by the means of this great light,
He poured his whole heart’s service into it,
And sent his love down the long beams that lit
The waste of broken water in the night.
He loved his kind, and joyed to see the ships
Come out of nowhere into his bright field,
And glide by safely with their living men,
Past him and out into the dark again,
To other hands their freight of joy to yield.
His work was noble and his work was done;
He kept the ships in safety and was glad;
And yet, late coming with the light’s supplies,
They found the love no longer in his eyes—
The keeper of the light had fallen mad.