Poems of Purpose

There is something in the sound of drum and fife
That stirs all the savage instincts into life.

Something within us broke,
   Something within us woke,
      The wild cave-woman spoke.

War had swept ten thousand years away from earth.
   We were primal once again.
   There were males, not modern men;
We were females meant to bring their sons to birth.
   And we could not wait for any formal rite,
   We could hear them calling to us, ‘Come to-night;
For to-morrow, at the dawn,
We move on!’
   And the drum
   Bellowed, ‘Come, come, come!’
And the fife
Whistled, ‘Life, life, life!’

Oh, clergy of the land,
Bible in hand,
All reverently you stand,
   On holy thoughts intent
   While barren wives receive the sacrament!
Had you the open visions you could see
   Phantoms of infants murdered in the womb,
   Who never knew a cradle or a tomb,
Hovering about these wives accusingly.

Bestow the sacrament!  Their sins are not well known—
Ours to the four winds of the earth are blown.

Berlin, Germany, gave the school children a half holiday to celebrate the sinking of the Lusitania.

War declares a holiday;
Little children, run and play.
Ring-a-rosy round the earth
With the garland of your mirth.

Shrill a song brim full of glee
Of a great ship sunk at sea.
Tell with pleasure and with pride
How a hundred children died.

Sing of orphan babes, whose cries
Beat against unanswering skies;
Let a mother’s mad despair
Lend staccato to your air.

Sing of babes who drowned alone;
Sing of headstones, marked ‘Unknown’;
Sing of homes made desolate
Where the stricken mourners wait.

When I was very young I used to feel the dark despairs of youth;
Out of my little griefs I would invent great tragedies and woes;
Not only for myself, but for all those I held most dear
I would invent vast sorrows in my melancholy moods of thought.
Yet down deep, deep in my heart there was an undertone of rapture.
It was like a voice from some other world calling softly to me,
Saying things joyful.

Now when I look about me, and see the great injustices of men,
See Idleness and Greed waited upon by luxury and mirth,
See prosperous Vice ride by in state, while footsore Virtue walks;
Now when I hear the cry of need rise up from lands of shameful wealth—
Yet down deep, deep in my heart there is an undertone of rapture.
It is like a Voice—it is a Voice—calling to me and saying:
‘Love rules triumphant.’

Gypsying, gypsying, through the world together,
Never mind the way we go, never mind what port.
Follow trails, or fashion sails, start in any weather:
While we journey hand in hand, everything is sport.

Gypsying, gypsying, leaving care and worry:
Never mind the ‘if’ and ‘but’ (words for coward lips).
Put them out with ‘fear’ and ‘doubt,’ in the pack with ‘hurry,’
While we stroll like vagabonds forth to trails, or ships.

Gypsying, gypsying, camp by hill or hollow;
Never mind the why of it, since it suits our mood.
Go or stay, and pay our way, and let those who follow
Find, upspringing from the soil, some small seed of good.

Gypsying, gypsying, through the world we wander:
Never mind the rushing years, that have come and gone.
There must be for you and me, lying over Yonder,
Other lands, where side by side we can gypsy on.

I am a Road; a good road, fair and smooth and broad;
   And I link with my beautiful tether
   Town and Country together,
Like a ribbon rolled on the earth, from the reel of God.
   Oh, great the life of a Road!

I am a Road; a long road, leading on and on;
   And I cry to the world to follow,
   Past meadow and hill and hollow,
Through desolate night, to the open gates of dawn.
   Oh, bold the life of a Road!

I am a Road; a kind road, shaped by strong hands.
   I make strange cities neighbours;
   The poor grow rich with my labours,
And beauty and comfort follow me through the lands.
   Oh, glad the life of a Road!

I am a Road; and I speed away from the slums,
   Away from desolate places,
   Away from unused spaces;
Wherever I go, there order from chaos comes.
   Oh, brave the life of a Road!

I am a Road; and I would make the whole world one.
   I would give hope to duty,
   And cover the earth with beauty.
Do you not see, O men! how all this might be done?
   So vast the power of the Road!

Too tall our structures, and too swift our pace;
Not so we mount, not so we gain the race.
Too loud the voice of commerce in the land;
Not so truth speaks, not so we understand.
Too vast our conquests, and too large our gains;
Not so comes peace, not so the soul attains.

But the need of the world is a faith that will live anywhere;
In the still dark depths of the woods, or out in the sun’s full glare.
A faith that can hear God’s voice, alike in the quiet glen,
Or in the roar of the street, and over the noises of men.

And the need of the world is love that burns in the heart like flame;
A love for the Giver of Life, in sorrow or joy the same;
A love that blazes a trail to Go through the dark and the cold,
Or keeps the pathway that leads to Him clean, through glory and gold.

For the faith that can only thrive or grow in the solitude,
And droops and dies in the marts of men, where sights and sounds are rude;
That is not a faith at all, but a dream of a mystic’s heart;
Our faith should point as the compass points, whatever be the chart.

I said I would have my fling,
   And do what a young man may;
And I didn’t believe a thing
   That the parsons have to say.
I didn’t believe in a God
   That gives us blood like fire,
Then flings us into hell because
   We answer the call of desire.

And I said: ‘Religion is rot,
   And the laws of the world are nil;
For the bad man is he who is caught
   And cannot foot his bill.
And there is no place called hell;
   And heaven is only a truth
When a man has his way with a maid,
   In the fresh keen hour of youth.

So I had my joy of life:
   I went the pace of the town;
And then I took me a wife,
   And started to settle down.
I had gold enough and to spare
   For all of the simple joys
That belong with a house and a home
   And a brood of girls and boys.

I married a girl with health
   And virtue and spotless fame.
I gave in exchange my wealth
   And a proud old family name.
And I gave her the love of a heart
   Grown sated and sick of sin!
My deal with the devil was all cleaned up,
   And the last bill handed in.

I said I must have my fling,
   And they knew the path I would go;
Yet no one told me a thing
   Of what I needed to know.
Folks talk too much of a soul
   From heavenly joys debarred—
And not enough of the babes unborn,
   By the sins of their fathers scarred.

Thinking of one thing all day long, at night
I fall asleep, brain weary and heart sore;
But only for a little while.  At three,
Sometimes at two o’clock, I wake and lie,
Staring out into darkness; while my thoughts
Begin the weary treadmill-toil again,
From that white marriage morning of our youth
Down to this dreadful hour.

      I see your face
Lit with the lovelight of the honeymoon;
I hear your voice, that lingered on my name
As if it loved each letter; and I feel
The clinging of your arms about my form,
Your kisses on my cheek—and long to break
The anguish of such memories with tears,
But cannot weep; the fountain has run dry.

And then our children came.  Deep in my soul,
From the first hour of conscious motherhood,
I knew I should conserve myself for this
Most holy office; knew God meant it so.
Yet even then, I held your wishes first;
And by my double duties lost the bloom
And freshness of my beauty; and beheld
A look of disapproval in your eyes.
But with the coming of our precious child,
The lover’s smile, tinged with the father’s pride,
Returned again; and helped to make me strong;
And life was very sweet for both of us.

And often, after you had left my side,
Alone I stood before my mirror, mad
With anger at my pallid cheeks, my dull
Unlighted eyes, my shrunken mother-breasts,
And wept, and wept, and faded more and more.
How could I hope to win back wandering love,
And make new flames in dying embers leap,
By such ungracious means?

My God, my God, how have I borne it all!
Yet since she had the power to wake that look—
The power to sweep the ashes from your heart
Of burned-out love of me, and light new fires,
One thing remained for me—to let you go.
I had no wish to keep the empty frame
From which the priceless picture had been wrenched.
Nor do I blame you; it was not your fault:
You gave me all that most men can give—love
Of youth, of beauty, and of passion; and
I gave you full return; my womanhood
Matched well your manhood.  Yet had you grown ill,
Or old, and unattractive from some cause
(Less close than was my service unto you),
I should have clung the tighter to you, dear;
And loved you, loved you, loved you more and more.

I grow so weary thinking of these things;
Day in, day out; and half the awful nights.

Suddenly and without warning they came—
The Revealing Angels came.
Suddenly and simultaneously, through city streets,
Through quiet lanes and country roads they walked.
They walked crying: ‘God has sent us to find
The vilest sinners of earth.
We are to bring them before Him, before the Lord of Life.’

The vast brigade moved forward, and behind then walked the Angels,
Walked the sorrowful Revealing Angels.

Sisters, sisters of mine, have we done what we could
In all the old ways, through all the new days,
To better the race and to make life sweet and good?
Have we played the full part that was ours in the start,
Sisters of mine?

Sisters, sisters of mine, as we hurry along
To a larger world, with our banners unfurled,
The battle-cry on lips where once was Love’s old song,
Are we leaving behind better things than we find,
Sisters of mine?

O well have we done the old tasks! in the old, old ways of earth.
We have kept the house in order, we have given the children birth;
And our sons went out with their fathers, and left us alone at the hearth!

We have cooked the meats for their table; we have woven their cloth at the loom;
We have pulled the weeds from their gardens, and kept the flowers in bloom;
And then we have sat and waited, alone in a silent room.

On the bold, bright face of the dollar all the evils of earth are shown.
We are weary of love that is barter, and of virtue that pines alone;
We are out in the world with the masters: we are finding and claiming our own!

I saw them beautiful, in fair array upon Commencement Day;
Lissome and lovely, radiant and sweet
As cultured roses, brought to their estate
By careful training.  Finished and complete
(As teachers calculate).

They passed in maiden grace along the aisle,
Leaving the chaste white sunlight of a smile
Upon the gazing throng.
Musing I thought upon their place as mothers of the race.

The deepest tragedies of life are not
Put into books, or acted on the stage.
Nay, they are lived in silence, by tense hearts
In homes, among dull unperceiving kin,
And thoughtless friends, who make a whip of words
Wherewith to lash these hearts, and call it wit.

The call of Fatherhood is from man’s brain.
Man cannot know the answer to that call
Save as a woman tells him.  But to her
The call of Motherhood is from the soul,
The brain, the body.  She is like a plant
Which buds and blossoms only to bear fruit.
Man is the pollen, carried by the wind
Of accident, or impulse, or desire;
And then his rôle of fatherhood is played.
Her threefold knowledge of maternity,
Through three times three great months, is hers alone.

Man as an egotist is wounded when
He is not father.  Woman when denied
The all-embracing rôle of motherhood
Rebels with her whole being.  Oftentimes
Rebellion finds its only utterance
In shattered nerves, and lack of self-control;
Which gives the merry world its chance to cry
‘Old maids are queer.’
   In far off Eastern lands

Here in the West, our God is Masculine;
And while we say He bade a Virgin bring
His Son to birth, we think of Him as One
Placing false values on forced continence—
Preparing heavens for those who live that life—
And hells for those who stray by thought or act
From the unnatural path our laws have made.

Much may be done with the world we are in,
Much with the race to better it;
We can unfetter it,
Free it from chains of the old traditions;
Broaden its viewpoint of virtue and sin;
Change its conditions
Of labour and wealth;
And open new roadways to knowledge and health.
Yet some things ever must stay as they are
While the sea has its tide and the sky has its star.
A man and a woman with love between,
Loyal and tender and true and clean,
Nothing better has been or can be
Than just those three.

Science may show us a wonderful vast
Secret of life and of breeding it;
Man by the heeding it
Out of earth’s chaos may bring a new order.
Off with old systems, old laws may be cast.
What now seems the border
Of licence in creeds,
May then be the centre of thoughts and of deeds.
Yet some things ever must stay as they are
While the sea has its tide and the sky has its star.
A man and a woman and love undefiled
And the look of the two in the face of a child,—
Oh, the joys of this world have their changing ways,
But this joy stays.
Nothing better on earth can be
Than just those three.

I had been almost happy for an hour,
Lost to the world that knew me in the park
Among strange faces; while my little girl
Leaped with the squirrels, chirruped with the birds
And with the sunlight glowed.  She was so dear,
So beautiful, so sweet; and for the time
The rose of love, shorn of its thorn of shame,
Bloomed in my heart.  Then suddenly you passed.
I sat alone upon the public bench;
You, with your lawful husband, rode in state;
And when your eyes fell on me and my child,
They were not eyes, but daggers, poison tipped.

My little one came running to my side
And called me Mother.  It was like a blow
Between the eyes; and made me sick with pain.
And then it seemed as if each bird and breeze
Took up the word, and changed its syllables
From Mother into Magdalene; and cried
My shame to all the world.

      It was your eyes
Which did all this.  But listen now to me
(Not you alone, but all the barren wives
Who, like you, flaunt their virtue in the face
Of fallen women): I do chance to know
The crimes you think are hidden from all men
(Save one who took your gold and sold his skill
And jeopardized his name for your base ends).

I was an untaught girl.  By nature led,
By love and passion blinded, I became
An unwed mother.  You, an honoured wife,
Refuse the crown of motherhood, defy
The laws of nature, and fling baby souls
Back in the face of God.  And yet you dare
Call me a sinner, and yourself a saint;
And all the world smiles on you, and its doors
Swing wide at your approach.
      I stand outside.

Surely there must be higher courts than earth,
Where you and I will some day meet and be
Weighed by a larger justice.

My grand-dame, vigorous at eighty-one,
Delights in talking of her only son,
My gallant father, long since dead and gone.
‘Ah, but he was the lad!’
She says, and sighs, and looks at me askance.
How well I read the meaning of that glance—
   ‘Poor son of such a dad;
   Poor weakling, dull and sad.’
I could, but would not tell her bitter truth
About my father’s youth.

She says: ‘He won all prizes in his time:
He overworked, and died before his prime.
At high ambition’s door I lay the crime.
   Ah, what a lad he was!’
Well, let her rest in that deceiving thought,
Of what avail to say, ‘His death was brought
   By broken sexual laws,
   The ancient sinful cause.’
I could, but would not, tell the good old dame
The story of his shame.

I could say: ‘I am crippled, weak, and pale,
Because my father was an unleashed male.
Because he ran so fast, I halt and fail
   (Ah, yes, he was the lad),
Because he drained each cup of sense-delight
I must go thirsting, thirsting, day and night.
   Because he was joy-mad,
   I must be always sad.

She looked at her neighbour’s house in the light of the waning day—
A shower of rice on the steps, and the shreds of a bride’s bouquet.
And then she drew the shade, to shut out the growing gloom,
But she shut it into her heart instead.  (Was that a voice in the room?)

‘My neighbour is sad,’ she sighed, ‘like the mother bird who sees
The last of her brood fly out of the nest to make its home in the trees’—
And then in a passion of tears—‘But, oh, to be sad like her:
Sad for a joy that has come and gone!’  (Did some one speak, or stir?)

‘The voice of the Might Have Been speaks here through the lonely dusk;
Life offered the fruits of love; you gathered only the husk.
There are jewels ablaze on your breast where never a child has slept.’
She covered her face with her ringed old hands, and wept and wept and wept.

HIS

I was so proud of you last night, dear girl,
While man with man was striving for your smile.
You never lost your head, nor once dropped down
From your high place
As queen in that gay whirl.

(It takes more poise to wear a little crown
With modesty and grace
Than to adorn the lordlier thrones of earth.)

HERS

After the ball last night, when I came home
I stood before my mirror, and took note
Of all that men call beautiful.  Delight,
Keen sweet delight, possessed me, when I saw
My own reflection smiling on me there,
Because your eyes, through all the swirling hours,
And in your slow good-night, had made a fact
Of what before I fancied might be so;
Yet knowing how men lie, by look and act,
I still had doubted.  But I doubt no more,
I know you love me, love me.  And I feel
Your satisfaction in my comeliness.

Beauty and youth, good health and willing mind,
A spotless reputation, and a heart
Longing for mating and for motherhood,
And lips unsullied by another’s kiss—
These are the riches I can bring to you.

Bristling with steeples, high against the hill,
Like some great thistle in the rosy dawn
It stood; the Town-of-Christian-Churches, stood.
The Traveller surveyed it with a smile.
‘Surely,’ He said, ‘here is the home of peace;
Here neighbour lives with neighbour in accord;
God in the heart of all.  Else why these spires?’
(Christmas season, and every bell ringing.)

The sudden shriek of whistles changed the sound
From mellow music into jarring noise.
Then down the street pale hurrying children came,
And vanished in the yawning Factory door.
He called to them: ‘Come back, come unto Me.’
The Foreman cursed, and caned Him from the place.
(Christmas season, and every bell ringing.)

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