Later Poems

The Sending of the Magi

In a far Eastern country
It happened long of yore,
Where a lone and level sunrise
Flushes the desert floor,
That three kings sat together
And a spearman kept the door.

Caspar, whose wealth was counted
By city and caravan;
With Melchior, the seer
Who read the starry plan;
And Balthasar, the blameless,
Who loved his fellow man.

There while they talked, a sudden
Strange rushing sound arose,
And as with startled faces
They thought upon their foes,
Three figures stood before them
In imperial repose.

One in flame-gold and one in blue
And one in scarlet clear,
With the almighty portent
Of sunrise they drew near!
And the kings made obeisance
With hand on breast, in fear.

"Arise," said they, "we bring you
Good tidings of great peace!
To-day a power is wakened
Whose working must increase,
Till fear and greed and malice
And violence shall cease."

The messengers were Michael,
By whom all things are wrought
To shape and hue; and Gabriel
Who is the lord of thought;
And Rafael without whose love
All toil must come to nought.

Then Rafael said to Balthasar,
"In a country west from here
A lord is born in lowliness,
In love without a peer.
Take grievances and gifts to him
And prove his kingship clear!

"By this sign ye shall know him;
Within his mother's arm
Among the sweet-breathed cattle
He slumbers without harm,
While wicked hearts are troubled
And tyrants take alarm."

And Gabriel said to Melchior,
"My comrade, I will send
My star to go before you,
That ye may comprehend
Where leads your mystic learning
In a humaner trend."

And Michael said to Gaspar,
"Thou royal builder, go
With tribute of thy riches!
Though time shall overthrow
Thy kingdom, no undoing
His gentle might shall know."

Then while the kings' hearts greatened
And all the chamber shone,
As when the hills at sundown
Take a new glory on
And the air thrills with purple,
Their visitors were gone.

Then straightway up rose Gaspar,
Melchior and Balthasar,
And passed out through the murmur
Of palace and bazar,
To make without misgiving
The journey of the Star.

The Angels of Man

The word of the Lord of the outer worlds
Went forth on the deeps of space,
That Michael, Gabriel, Rafael,
Should stand before his face,
The seraphs of his threefold will,
Each in his ordered place.

Brave Michael, the right hand of God,
Strong Gabriel, his voice,
Fair Rafael, his holy breath
That makes the world rejoice,—
Archangels of omnipotence,
Of knowledge, and of choice;

Michael, angel of loveliness
In all things that survive,
And Gabriel, whose part it is
To ponder and contrive,
And Rafael, who puts the heart
In every thing alive.

Came Rafael, the enraptured soul,
Stainless as wind or fire,
The urge within the flux of things,
The life that must aspire,
With whom is the beginning,
The worth, and the desire;

And Gabriel, the all-seeing mind,
Bringer of truth and light,
Who lays the courses of the stars
In their stupendous flight,
And calls the migrant flocks of spring
Across the purple night;

And Michael, the artificer
Of beauty, shape, and hue,
Lord of the forges of the sun,
The crucible of the dew,
And driver of the plowing rain
When the flowers are born anew.

Then said the Lord: "Ye shall account
For the ministry ye hold,
Since ye have been my sons to keep
My purpose from of old.
How fare the realms within your sway
To perfections still untold?"

Answered each as he had the word.
And a great silence fell
On all the listening hosts of heaven
To hear their captains tell,—
With the breath of the wind, the call of a bird.
And the cry of a mighty bell.

Then the Lord said: "The time is ripe
For finishing my plan,
And the accomplishment of that
For which all time began.
Therefore on you is laid the task
Of the fashioning of man;

"In your own likeness shall he be,
To triumph in the end.
I only give him Michael's strength
To guard him and defend,
With Gabriel to be his guide,
And Rafael his friend.

"Ye shall go forth upon the earth,
And make there Paradise,
And be the angels of that place
To make men glad and wise,
With loving-kindness in their hearts,
And knowledge in their eyes.

"And ye shall be man's counsellors
That neither rest nor sleep,
To cheer the lonely, lift the frail,
And solace them that weep.
And ever on his wandering trail
Your watch-fires ye shall keep;

"Till in the far years he shall find
The country of his quest,
The empire of the open truth,
The vision of the best,
Foreseen by every mother saint
With her new-born on her breast."

At the Making of Man

First all the host of Raphael
In liveries of gold,
Lifted the chorus on whose rhythm
The spinning spheres are rolled,—
The Seraphs of the morning calm
Whose hearts are never cold.

He shall be born a spirit,
Part of the soul that yearns,
The core of vital gladness
That suffers and discerns,
The stir that breaks the budding sheath
When the green spring returns,—

The gist of power and patience
Hid in the plasmic clay,
The calm behind the senses,
The passionate essay
To make his wise and lovely dream
Immortal on a day.

The soft, Aprilian ardors
That warm the waiting loam
Shall whisper in his pulses
To bid him overcome,
And he shall learn the wonder-cry
Beneath the azure dome.

And though all-dying nature
Should teach him to deplore,
The ruddy fires of autumn
Shall lure him but the more
To pass from joy to stronger joy,
As through an open door.

He shall have hope and honor,
Proud trust and courage stark,
To hold him to his purpose
Through the unlighted dark,
And love that sees the moon's full orb
In the first silver arc.

And he shall live by kindness
And the heart's certitude,
Which moves without misgiving
In ways not understood,
Sure only of the vast event,—
The large and simple good.

Then Gabriel's host in silver gear
And vesture twilight blue,
The spirits of immortal mind,
The warders of the true,
Took up the theme that gives the world
Significance anew.

He shall be born to reason,
And have the primal need
To understand and follow
Wherever truth may lead,—
To grow in wisdom like a tree
Unfolding from a seed.

A watcher by the sheepfolds,
With wonder in his eyes,
He shall behold the seasons,
And mark the planets rise,
Till all the marching firmament
Shall rouse his vast surmise.

Beyond the sweep of vision,
Or utmost reach of sound,
This cunning fire-maker,
This tiller of the ground,
Shall learn the secrets of the suns
And fathom the profound.

For he must prove all being
Sane, beauteous, benign,
And at the heart of nature
Discover the divine,—
Himself the type and symbol
Of the eternal trine.

He shall perceive the kindling
Of knowledge, far and dim,
As of the fire that brightens
Below the dark sea-rim,
When ray by ray the splendid sun
Floats to the world's wide brim.

And out of primal instinct,
The lore of lair and den,
He shall emerge to question
How, wherefore, whence, and when,
Till the last frontier of the truth
Shall lie within his ken.

Then Michael's scarlet-suited host
Took up the word and sang;
As though a trumpet had been loosed
In heaven, the arches rang;
For these were they who feel the thrill
Of beauty like a pang.

He shall be framed and balanced
For loveliness and power,
Lithe as the supple creatures,
And colored as a flower,
Sustained by the all-feeding earth,
Nurtured by wind and shower,

To stand within the vortex
Where surging forces play,
A poised and pliant figure
Immutable as they,
Till time and space and energy
Surrenders to his sway.

He shall be free to journey
Over the teeming earth,
An insatiable seeker,
A wanderer from his birth,
Clothed in the fragile veil of sense,
With fortitude for girth.

His hands shall have dominion
Of all created things,
To fashion in the likeness
Of his imaginings,
To make his will and thought survive
Unto a thousand springs.

The world shall be his province,
The princedom of his skill;
The tides shall wear his harness,
The winds obey his will;
Till neither flood, nor fire, nor frost,
Shall work to do him ill.

A creature fit to carry
The pure creative fire,
Whatever truth inform him,
Whatever good inspire,
He shall make lovely in all things
To the end of his desire.

For when the almighty word went forth
To bid creation be,—
The glimmering star-tracks on the blue,
The tide-belts on the sea,—
Perfect as planned, from Michael's hand
The lasting hills arose,
Their bases on the poppied plain,
Their peaks in bannered snows.

Cedar and thorn and oak were born;
Green fiddleheads uncurled
In the spring woods; gold adder-tongues
Came forth to glad the world;—
The magic of the punctual seeds,
Each with its pregnant powers,
As the lord Michael fashioned them
To keep their days and hours.

Frail fins to ride the monstrous tide,
Soft wings to poise and gleam,
He formed the pageant tribe by tribe
As vivid as a dream.
And still must his beneficence
Renew, create, sustain,
Sorcery of the wind and sun,
Alchemy of the rain.

Teeming with God, the kindly sod
Yearns through the summer days
With the mute eloquence of flowers,
Its only means of praise.
At dusk and dawn the tranquil hills
Throb to the song of birds,
And all the dim blue silence thrills
To transport not of words.

For earth must breed to spirit's need,
Clay to the finer clay,
That soul through sense find recompense
And rapture on her way.
And man, from dust and dreaming wrought,
To all things must impart
The trend and likeness of his thought,
The passion of his heart.

The love and lore he shall acquire
To word and deed must dare;
Resemblances of God his sire
His voice and mien must bear.
His children's children shall portray
The skill which he bestows
On living; and what life must mean
His craftsman's instinct knows.

Line upon line and tone by tone,
The visioned form he gives
To sound and color, wood and stone,
Takes loveliness and lives.
He sees his project's soaring hope
Grow substance, and expand
To measure a diviner scope
Beneath his patient hand.

To pencil, brush, and burnisher
His wizardry he lends,
And to the care of lathe and loom
His secret he commends.
In hues and forms and cadences
New beauty he instills,
A brother by the right of craft
To Michael of the hills.

The Dreamers

Charlemagne with knight and lord,
In the hill at Ingelheim,
Slumbers at the council board,
Seated waiting for the time.

With their swords across their knees
In that chamber dimly lit,
Chin on breast life effigies
Of the dreaming gods, they sit.

Long ago they went to sleep,
While great wars above them hurled.
Taking counsel how to keep
Giant evil from the world.

Golden-armored, iron-crowned,
There in silence they await
The last war,—in war renowned,
Done with doubting and debate.

What is all our clamor for?
Petty virtue, puny crime,
Beat in vain against the door
Of the hill at Ingelheim.

When at last shall dawn the day
For the saving of the world,
They will forth in war array,
Iron-armored, golden-curled.

In the hill at Ingelheim,
Still, they say, the Emperor,
Like a warrior in his prime,
Waits the message at the door.

Shall the long enduring fight
Break above our heads in vain,
Plunged in lethargy and night,
Like the men of Charlemagne?

Comrades, through the Council Hall
Of the heart, inert and dumb,
Hear ye not the summoning call,
"Up, my lords, the hour is come!"

El Dorado

This is the story
Of Santo Domingo,
The first established
Permanent city
Built in the New World.

Miguel Dias,
A Spanish sailor
In the fleet of Columbus,
Fought with a captain,
Wounded him, then in fear
Fled from his punishment.

Ranging the wilds, he came
On a secluded
Indian village
Of the peace-loving
Comely Caguisas.
There he found shelter,
Food, fire, and hiding,—
Welcome unstinted.

Over this tribe ruled—
No cunning chieftain
Grown gray in world-craft,
But a young soft-eyed
Girl, tender-hearted,
Loving, and regal
Only in beauty,
With no suspicion
Of the perfidious
Merciless gold-lust
Of the white sea-wolves,—
Roving, rapacious,
Conquerors, destroyers.
Strongly the stranger
Wooed with his foreign
Manners, his Latin
Fervor and graces;
Beat down her gentle,
Unreserved strangeness;

Made himself consort
Of a young queen, all
Loveliness, ardor,
And generous devotion.
Her world she gave him,
Nothing denied him,
All, all for love's sake
Poured out before him,—
Lived but to pleasure
And worship her lover.

Such is the way
Of free-hearted women,
Radiant beings
Who carry God's secret;
All their seraphic
Unworldly wisdom
Spent without fearing
Or calculation
For the enrichment
Of—whom, what, and wherefore?

Ask why the sun shines
And is not measured,
Ask why the rain falls
Aeon by aeon,
Ask why the wind comes
Making the strong trees
Blossom in springtime,
Forever unwearied!
Whoever earned these gifts,
Air, sun, and water?
Whoever earned his share
In that unfathomed
Full benediction,

Passing the old earth's
Cunningest knowledge,
Greater than all
The ambition of ages,
Light as a thistle-seed,
Strong as a tide-run,
Vast and mysterious
As the night sky,—
The love of woman?
Not long did Miguel
Dias abide content
With his good fortune.
Back to his voyaging
Turned his desire,
Restless once more to rove
With boon companions,
Filled with the covetous
Thirst for adventure,—
The white man's folly.

Then poor Zamcaca,
In consternation
Lest she lack merit
Worthy to tether
His wayward fancy,
Knowing no way but love,
Guileless, and sedulous
Only to gladden,
Quick and sweet-souled
As another madonna,
Gave him the secret
Of her realm's treasure,—
Raw gold unweighed,
Stored wealth unimagined;
Decked him with trappings
Of that yellow peril;
And bade him go
Bring his comrades to settle
In her dominion.

Not long the Spaniards
Stood on that bidding.
Gold was their madness,
Their Siren and Pandar.
Trooping they followed
Their friend the explorer,
Greed-fevered ravagers
Of all things goodly,
Hot-foot to plunder
The land of his love-dream.
They swooped on that country,
Founded their city,
Made Miguel Dias
Its first Alcalde,—
Flattered and fooled him,
Loud in false praises
For the great wealth he had
By his love's bounty.

Then the old story,
Older than Adam,—
Treachery, rapine,
Ingratitude, bloodshed,
Wrought by the strong man
On unsuspecting
And gentler brothers.
The rabid Spaniard,
Christian and ruthless
(Like any modern
Magnate of Mammon),
Harried that fearless,
Light-hearted, trustful folk
Under his booted heel.
Tears (ah, a woman's tears,—
The grief of angels,—)
Fell from Zamcaca,
Sorrowing, hopeless,
Alone, for her people.

Sick from injustice,
Distraught, and disheartened,
Tortured by sight and sound
Of wrong and ruin,
When the kind, silent,
Tropical moonlight,
Lay on the city,
In the dead hour
When the soul trembles
Within the portals
Of its own province,
While far away seem

All deeds of daytime,
She rose and wondered;
Gazed on the sleeping
Face of her loved one,
Alien and cruel;
Kissed her strange children,
Longingly laying a hand
In farewell on each,
Crept to the door, and fled
Back to the forest.

Only the deep heart
Of the World-mother,
Brooding below the storms
Of human madness,
Can know what desolate
Anguish possessed her.

Only the far mind
Of the World-father,
Seeing the mystic
End and beginning,
Knows why the pageant
Is so betattered
With mortal sorrow.

On the Plaza

One August day I sat beside
A café window open wide
To let the shower-freshened air
Blow in across the Plaza, where
In golden pomp against the dark
Green leafy background of the Park,
St. Gaudens' hero, gaunt and grim,
Rides on with Victory leading him.

The wet, black asphalt seemed to hold
In every hollow pools of gold,
And clouds of gold and pink and gray
Were piled up at the end of day,
Far down the cross street, where one tower
Still glistened from the drenching shower.

A weary, white-haired man went by,
Cooling his forehead gratefully
After the day's great heat. A girl,
Her thin white garments in a swirl
Blown back against her breasts and knees,
Like a Winged Victory in the breeze,
Alive and modern and superb,
Crossed from the circle of the curb.

We sat there watching people pass,
Clinking the ice against the glass
And talking idly—books or art,
Or something equally apart
From the essential stress and strife
That rudely form and further life,
Glad of a respite from the heat,
When down the middle of the street,
Trundling a hurdy-gurdy, gay
In spite of the dull-stifling day,
Three street-musicians came. The man,
With hair and beard as black as Pan,
Strolled on one side with lordly grace,
While a young girl tugged at a trace
Upon the other. And between
The shafts there walked a laughing queen,
Bright as a poppy, strong and free.
What likelier land than Italy
Breeds such abandon? Confident
And rapturous in mere living spent
Each moment to the utmost, there
With broad, deep chest and kerchiefed hair,
With head thrown back, bare throat, and waist
Supple, heroic and free-laced,
Between her two companions walked
This splendid woman, chaffed and talked,
Did half the work, made all the cheer
Of that small company.

No fear
Of failure in a soul like hers
That every moment throbs and stirs
With merry ardor, virile hope,
Brave effort, nor in all its scope
Has room for thought or discontent,
Each day its own sufficient vent
And source of happiness.

Without
A trace of bitterness or doubt
Of life's true worth, she strode at ease
Before those empty palaces,
A simple heiress of the earth
And all its joys by happy birth,
Beneficent as breeze or dew,
And fresh as though the world were new
And toil and grief were not. How rare
A personality was there!

A Painter's Holiday

We painters sometimes strangely keep
These holidays. When life runs deep
And broad and strong, it comes to make
Its own bright-colored almanack.
Impulse and incident divine
Must find their way through tone and line;
The throb of color and the dream
Of beauty, giving art its theme
From dear life's daily miracle,
Illume the artist's life as well.
A bird-note, or a turning leaf,
The first white fall of snow, a brief
Wild song from the Anthology,
A smile, or a girl's kindling eye,—
And there is worth enough for him
To make the page of history dim.
Who knows upon what day may come
The touch of that delirium
Which lifts plain life to the divine,
And teaches hand the magic line
No cunning rule could ever reach,
Where Soul's necessities find speech?
None knows how rapture may arrive
To be our helper, and survive
Through our essay to help in turn
All starving eager souls who yearn
Lightward discouraged and distraught.
Ah, once art's gleam of glory caught
And treasured in the heart, how then
We walk enchanted among men,
And with the elder gods confer!
So art is hope's interpreter,
And with devotion must conspire
To fan the eternal altar fire.
Wherefore you find me here to-day,
Not idling the good hours away,
But picturing a magic hour
With its replenishment of power.

Conceive a bleak December day,
The streets all mire, the sky all gray,
And a poor painter trudging home
Disconsolate, when what should come
Across his vision, but a line
On a bold-lettered play-house sign,
A Persian Sun Dance.

In he turns.
A step, and there the desert burns
Purple and splendid; molten gold
The streamers of the dawn unfold,
Amber and amethyst uphurled
Above the far rim of the world;
The long-held sound of temple bells
Over the hot sand steals and swells;
A lazy tom-tom throbs and dones
In barbarous maddening monotones;
While sandal incense blue and keen
Hangs in the air. And then the scene
Wakes, and out steps, by rhythm released,
The sorcery of all the East,
In rose and saffron gossamer,—
A young light-hearted worshipper
Who dances up the sun. She moves
Like waking woodland flower that loves
To greet the day. Her lithe, brown curve
Is like a sapling's sway and swerve
Before the spring wind. Her dark hair
Framing a face vivid and rare,
Curled to her throat and then flew wild,
Like shadows round a radiant child.
The sunlight from her cymbals played
About her dancing knees, and made
A world of rose-lit ecstasy,
Prophetic of the day to be.

Such mystic beauty might have shone
In Sardis or in Babylon,
To bring a Satrap to his doom
Or touch some lad with glory's bloom.
And now it wrought for me, with sheer
Enchantment of the dying year,
Its irresistible reprieve
From joylessness on New Year's Eve.

Mirage

Here hangs at last, you see, my row
Of sketches,—all I have to show
Of one enchanted summer spent
In sweet laborious content,
At little 'Sconset by the moors,
With the sea thundering by its doors,
Its grassy streets, and gardens gay
With hollyhocks and salvia.

And here upon the easel yet,
With the last brush of paint still wet,
(Showing how inspiration toils),
Is one where the white surf-line boils
Along the sand, and the whole sea
Lifts to the skyline, just to be
The wondrous background from whose verge
Of blue on blue there should emerge
This miracle.

One day of days
I strolled the silent path that strays
Between the moorlands and the beach
From Siasconset, till you reach
Tom Nevers Head, the lone last land
That fronts the ocean, lone and grand
As when the Lord first bade it be
For a surprise and mystery.
A sailless sea, a cloudless sky,
The level lonely moors, and I
The only soul in all that vast
Of color made intense to last!
The small white sea-birds piping near;
The great soft moor-winds; and the dear
Bright sun that pales each crest to jade,
Where gulls glint fishing unafraid.

Here man, the godlike, might have gone
With his deep thought, on that wild dawn
When the first sun came from the sea,
Glowing and kindling the world to be,
While time began and joy had birth,—
No wilder sweeter spot on earth!

As I sat there and mused (the way
We painters waste our time, you say!)
On the sheer loneliness and strength
Whence life must spring, there came at length
Conviction of the helplessness
Of earth alone to ban or bless.
I saw the huge unhuman sea;
I heard the drear monotony
Of the waves beating on the shore
With heedless, futile strife and roar,
Without a meaning or an aim.

And then a revelation came,
In subtle, sudden, lovely guise,
Like one of those soft mysteries
Of Indian jugglers, who evoke
A flower for you out of smoke.
I knew sheer beauty without soul
Could never be perfection's goal,
Nor satisfy the seeking mind
With all it longs for and must find
One day. The lovely things that haunt
Our senses with an aching want,
And move our souls, are like the fair
Lost garments of a soul somewhere.
Nature is naught, if not the veil
Of some great good that must prevail
And break in joy, as woods of spring
Break into song and blossoming.

But what makes that great goodness start
Within ourselves? When leaps the heart
With gladness, only then we know
Why lovely Nature travails so,—
Why art must persevere and pray
In her incomparable way.
In all the world the only worth
Is human happiness; its dearth
The darkest ill. Let joyance be,
And there is God's sufficiency,—
Such joy as only can abound
Where the heart's comrade has been found.

That was my thought. And then the sea
Broke in upon my revery
With clamorous beauty,—the superb
Eternal noun that takes no verb
But love. The heaven of dove-like blue
Bent o'er the azure, round and true
As magic sphere of crystal glass,
Where faith sees plain the pageant pass
Of things unseen. So I beheld
The sheer sky-arches domed and belled,
As if the sea were the very floor
Of heaven where walked the gods of yore
In Plato's imagery, and I
Uplifted saw their pomps go by.

The House of space and time grew tense
As if with rapture's imminence,
When truth should be at last made clear,
And the great worth of life appear;
While I, a worshipper at the shrine,
For very longing grew divine,
Borne upward on earth's ecstasy,
And welcomed by the boundless sky.

A mighty prescience seemed to brood
Over that tenuous solitude
Yearning for form, till it became
Vivid as dream and live as flame,
Through magic art could never match,
The vision I have tried to catch,—
All earth's delight and meaning grown
A lyric presence loved and known.

How otherwise could time evolve
Young courage, or the high resolve,
Or gladness to assuage and bless
The soul's austere great loneliness,
Than by providing her somehow
With sympathy of hand and brow,
And bidding her at last go free,
Companioned through eternity?

So there appeared before my eyes,
In a beloved, familiar guise,
A vivid, questing human face
In profile, scanning heaven for grace,
Up-gazing there against the blue
With eyes that heaven itself shone through;
The lips soft-parted, half in prayer,
Half confident of kindness there;
A brow like Plato's made for dream
In some immortal Academe,
And tender as a happy girl's;
A full dark head of clustered curls
Round as an emperor's, where meet
Repose and ardor, strong and sweet,
Distilling from a mind unmarred
The glory of her rapt regard.

So eager Mary might have stood,
In love's adoring attitude,
And looked into the angel's eyes
With faith and fearlessness, all wise
In soul's unfaltering innocence,
Sure in her woman's supersense
Of things only the humble know.
My vision looks forever so.

In other years when men shall say,
"What was the painter's meaning, pray?
Why all this vast of sea and space,
Just to enframe a woman's face?"
Here is the pertinent reply,
"What better use for earth and sky?"

The great archangel passed that way
Illuming life with mystic ray.
Not Lippo's self nor Raphael
Had lovelier, realer things to tell
Than I, beholding far away
How all the melting rose and gray
Upon the purple sea-line leaned
About that head that intervened.

How real was she? Ah, my friend,
In art the fact and fancy blend
Past telling. All the painter's task
Is with the glory. Need we ask
The tulips breaking through the mould
To their untarnished age of gold,
Whence their ideals were derived
That have so gloriously survived?
Flowers and painters both must give
The hint they have received, to live,—
Spend without stint the joy and power
That lurk in each propitious hour,—
Yet leave the why untold—God's way.

My sketch is all I have to say.

The Winged Victory

Thou dear and most high Victory,
Whose home is the unvanquished sea,
Whose fluttering wind-blown garments keep
The very freshness, fold, and sweep
They wore upon the galley's prow,
By what unwonted favor now
Hast thou alighted in this place,
Thou Victory of Samothrace?

O thou to whom in countless lands
With eager hearts and striving hands
Strong men in their last need have prayed,
Greatly desiring, undismayed,
And thou hast been across the fight
Their consolation and their might,
Withhold not now one dearer grace,
Thou Victory of Samothrace!

Behold, we, too, must cry to thee,
Who wage our strife with Destiny,
And give for Beauty and for Truth
Our love, our valor and our youth.
Are there no honors for these things
To match the pageantries of kings?
Are we more laggard in the race
Than those who fell at Samothrace?

Not only for the bow and sword,
O Victory, be thy reward!
The hands that work with paint and clay
In Beauty's service, shall not they
Also with mighty faith prevail?
Let hope not die, nor courage fail,
But joy come with thee pace for pace,
As once long since in Samothrace.

Grant us the skill to shape the form
And spread the color living-warm,
(As they who wrought aforetime did),
Where love and wisdom shall lie hid,
In fair impassioned types, to sway
The cohorts of the world to-day,
In Truth's eternal cause, and trace
Thy glory down from Samothrace.

With all the ease and splendid poise
Of one who triumphs without noise,
Wilt thou not teach us to attain
Thy sense of power without strain,
That we a little may possess
Our souls with thy sure loveliness,—
That calm the years cannot deface,
Thou Victory of Samothrace?

Then in the ancient, ceaseless war
With infamy, go thou before!
Amid the shoutings and the drums
Let it be learned that Beauty comes,
Man's matchless Paladin to be,
Whose rule shall make his spirit free
As thine from all things mean or base,
Thou Victory of Samothrace.

The Gate of Peace

Ah, who will build the city of our dream,
Where beauty shall abound and truth avail,
With patient love that is too wise for strife,
Blending in power as gentle as the rain
With the reviving earth on full spring days?
Who now will speed us to its gate of peace,
And reassure us on our doubtful road?

Three centuries ago a fearless man,
Yearning to set his people in the way,
Threw all his royal might into a plan
To found an ideal city that should give
Freedom to every instinct for the best,
From humblest impulse in his own domain
To rumored wisdom from the world's far ends.
Strengthened with ardor from a high resolve,
Beneath the patient smile of Indian skies
This fair dream flourished for a score of years,
Until the blight of evil touched its bloom
With fading, and transformed its vivid life
Into a ghost-flower of its fair design.

Now ruined nursery tower and gay boudoir,
A sad custodian of sacred tombs,
And scattered feathers from the purple wings
Of doves who reign in undisputed calm
Over this Eden of hope and fair essay,
Recall the valor of this ancient quest.

Great Akbar,—grandfather of Shah Jehan,
The artist Emperor of India
Who built the Taj for love of one held dear
Beyond all other women in the world,
And left that loveliest memorial,
The most supreme of wonders wrought by man,
To move for very joy all hearts to tears
Beholding how great beauty springs from love,—
Akbar the wisest ruler over Ind,
Grandson of Babar in whose veins were mixed
The blood of Tamerlane and Chinghiz Khan,
Who beat the Afghans and the Rajputs down
At Paniput and Buxar in Bengal,
Making himself the lord of Hindustan,
And with his restless Tartars founded there
The Mogul empire with its Moslem faith,
Its joyousness, enlightenment, and art,—
Akbar of all the sovereigns of the East
Is still most deeply loved and gladly praised.

For he who conquered with so strong a hand
Cabul, Kashmir, and Kandahar, and Sind,
Oudh and Orissa, Chitor and Ajmir,
With all their wealth to weld them into one,
Upholding justice with his sovereignty
Throughout his borders and imposing peace,
Was first and last a seeker after truth.

No craven unlaborious truce he sought,
But that great peace which only comes with light,
Emerging after chaos has been quelled
In some long struggle of enduring will,
To be a proof of order and of law,
Which cannot rest on falsehood nor on wrong,
But spreads like generous sunshine on the earth
When goodness has been gained and truth made clear,
At whatsoe'er incalculable cost.
Returning once with his victorious arms
And war-worn companies on the homeward march
To Agra and his court's magnificence,
From a campaign against some turbulent folk,
He came at evening to a quiet place
Near Sikri by the roadside through the woods,
Where there were many doves among the trees.

There Salim Chisti a holy man had made
His lonely dwelling in the wilderness,
Seeking perfection. And the solitude
Was sweet to Akbar, and he halted there
And went to Salim in his lodge and said,
"O man and brother, thy long days are spent
In meditation, seeking for the path
Through this great world's impediments to peace,
Here in the twilight with the holy stars
Or when the rose of morning breaks in gold;
Tell me, I pray, whence comes the gift of peace
With all its blessings for a people's need,
And how may true tranquillity be found
On which man's restless spirit longs to rest?"

And Salim answered, "Lord, most readily
In Allah's out-of-doors, for there men live
More truly, being free from false constraint,
For learning wisdom with a calmer mind.
For they who would find peace must conquer fear
And ignorance and greed,—the ravagers
Of spirit, mind, and sense,—and learn to live
Content beneath the shade of Allah's hand.
Who worships not his own will shall find peace."

Then Akbar answered, "I have set my heart
On making beauty, truth, and justice shine
As the ordered stars above the darkened earth.
Are not these also things to be desired,
And striven for with no uncertain toil?
And save through them whence comes the gift of peace?"

Then Salim smiled, and with his finger drew
In the soft dust before his door, and said,
"O king, thy words are true, thy heart most wise.
Thou also shalt find peace, as Allah wills,
Through following bravely what to thee seems best.
When any question, 'What is peace?' reply,
'The shelter of the Gate of Paradise,
The shadow of the archway, not the arch,
Within whose shade at need the poor may rest,
The weary be refreshed, the weak secure,
And all men pause to gladden as they go.'"

And Akbar pondered Salim Chisti's words.
Then turning to his ministers, he said,
"Here will I build my capital, and here
The world shall come unto a council hall,
And in a place of peace pursue the quest
Of wisdom and the finding out of truth,
That there be no more discord upon earth,
But only knowledge, beauty, and good will."

And it was done according to Akbar's word.
There in the wilderness as by magic rose
Futtehpur Sikri, the victorious city,
Of marble and red sandstone among the trees,
A rose unfolding in the kindling dawn.
Palace and mosque and garden and serai,
Bazaars and baths and spacious pleasure grounds,
By favor of Allah to perfection sprang.

Thus Akbar wrought to make his dream come true.
From the four corners of the world he brought
His master workmen, from Iran and Ind,
From wild Mongolia and the Arabian wastes;
Masons from Bagdad, Delhi, and Multan;
Dome builders from the North, from Samarkand;
Cunning mosaic workers from Kanauj;
And carvers of inscriptions from Shiraz;
And they all labored with endearing skill,
Each at his handicraft, to make beauty be.

When the first ax-blade on the timber rang,
The timid doves, as if foreboding ill,
Had fled from Sikri and its quiet groves.

But as he promised, Akbar sent and bade
The wise men of all nations to his court,
Brahman and Christian, Buddhist and Parsee,
Jain and stiff Mohammedan and Jew,
All followers of the One with many names,
Bringing the ghostly wisdom of the earth.

And so they came of every hue and creed.
From the twelve winds of heaven their caravans
Drew into Sikri as Akbar summoned them,
To spend long afternoons in council grave,
Sifting tradition for the seed of truth,
In the great mosque in Futtehpur at peace.
And Salim Chisti lived his holy life,
Beloved and honored there as Akbar's friend.

But light and changeable are the hearts of men.
Soon in that city dedicate to peace
Dissensions spread and rivalries grew rife,
Envy and bitterness and strife returned
Once more, and truth before them fled away.
Then Salim Chisti, coming to Akbar spoke,
"Lord, give thy servant leave now to depart
And follow where the fluttered wings have gone,
For here there is no longer any peace,
And truth cannot prevail where discord dwells."

"Nay then," said Akbar, "'tis not thou but I
Who am the servant here and must go hence.
I found thee master of this solitude,
Lord of the princedom of a quiet mind,
A sovereign vested in tranquillity,
And I have done thee wrong and stayed thy feet
From following perfection, with my horde
Of turbulent malcontents; and my loved dream
To build a city of abiding peace
Was but a vain illusion. Therefore now
This foolish people shall be driven forth
From this fair place, to live as they may choose
In disputance and wrangling longer still,
Until they learn, if Allah wills it so,
To lay aside their folly for the truth."

And as the king commanded, so it was.
More quickly than he came, with all his court
And hosts of followers he went away,
Leaving the place to solitude once more,—
A rose to wither where it once had blown.

To-day the all-kind unpolluted sun
Shines through the marble fret-work with no sound;
The winds play hide and seek through corridors
Where stately women with dark glowing eyes
Have laughed and frolicked in their fluttering robes;
The rose leaves drop with none to gather them,
In gardens where no footfall comes with eve,
Nor any lovers watch the rising moon;
And ancient silence, truer than all speech,
Still holds the secrets of the Council Hall,
Upon whose walls frescoes of many faiths
Attest the courtesy of open minds.

Before the last camp-follower was gone,
The doves returned and took up their abode
In the main gate of those deserted walls.
And in their custody this "Gate of Peace"
Bears still the grandeur of its origin,
Firing anew the wistful hearts of men
To brave endeavor with replenished hope,
Though since that time three hundred years ago,
The magic hush of those forsaken streets
And empty courtyards has been undisturbed
Save by the gentle whirring of grey wings,
With cooing murmurs uttered all day long,
And reverent tread of those from near and far,
Who still pursue the immemorial quest.

About This Book