Poems of Sentiment

That melancholy phrase “It might have been,”
   However sad, doth in its heart enfold
   A hidden germ of promise! for I hold
Whatever might have been shall be.
      Though in
Some other realm and life, the soul must win
   The goal that erst was possible.  But cold
   And cruel as the sound of frozen mould
Dropped on a coffin, are the words “Has been.”

“She has been beautiful”—“he has been great,”
   “Rome has been powerful,” we sigh and say.
   It is the pitying crust we toss decay,
The dirge we breathe o’er some degenerate state,
An epitaph for fame’s unburied dead.
God pity those who live to hear it said!

Out from the harbour of youth’s bay
   There leads the path of pleasure;
With eager steps we walk that way
   To brim joy’s largest measure.
But when with morn’s departing beam
   Goes youth’s last precious minute,
We sigh “’Twas but a fevered dream—
   There’s nothing in it.”

Then on our vision dawns afar
   The goal of glory, gleaming
Like some great radiant solar star,
   And sets us longing, dreaming.
Forgetting all things left behind,
   We strain each nerve to win it,
But when ’tis ours—alas! we find
   There’s nothing in it.

Like some reformer, who with mien austere,
   Neglected dress, and loud insistent tones,
   More rasping than the wrongs which she bemoans,
Walks through the land and wearies all who hear,
   While yet we know the need of such reform;
   So comes unlovely March, with wind and storm,
To break the spell of winter, and set free
   The poisoned brooks and crocus beds oppressed.
   Severe of face, gaunt-armed, and wildly dressed,
She is not fair nor beautiful to see.
   But merry April and sweet smiling May
   Come not till March has first prepared the way.

The birds laugh loud and long together
   When Fashion’s followers speed away
At the first cool breath of autumn weather.
   Why, this is the time, cry the birds, to stay!
When the deep calm sea and the deep sky over
   Both look their passion through sun-kissed space,
As a blue-eyed maid and her blue-eyed lover
   Might each gaze into the other’s face.

Oh! this is the time when careful spying
   Discovers the secrets Nature knows.
You find when the butterflies plan for flying
   (Before the thrush or the blackbird goes),
You see some day by the water’s edges
   A brilliant border of red and black;
And then off over the hills and hedges
   It flutters away on the summer’s track.

Some chill grey dawn you note with grieving
   That the King of Autumn is on his way.
You see, with a sorrowful, slow believing,
   How the wanton woods have gone astray.
They wear the stain of bold caresses,
   Of riotous revels with old King Frost;
They dazzle all eyes with their gorgeous dresses,
   Nor care that their green young leaves are lost.

A wet wind blows from the East one morning,
   The wood’s gay garments looked draggled out.
You hear a sound, and your heart takes warning—
   The birds are planning their winter route.
They wheel and settle and scold and wrangle,
   Their tempers are ruffled, their voices loud;
Then whirr—and away in a feathered tangle,
   To fade in the south like a passing cloud.

A songless wood stripped bare of glory—
   A sodden moor that is black and brown;
The year has finished its last love-story:
   Oh! let us away to the gay bright town.

There never was success so nobly gained,
   Or victory so free from selfish dross,
But in the winning some one had been pained
   Or some one suffered loss.

There never was so nobly planned a fête,
   Or festal throng with hearts on pleasure bent,
But some neglected one outside the gate
   Wept tears of discontent.

There never was a bridal morning fair
   With hope’s blue skies and love’s unclouded sun
For two fond hearts, that did not bring despair
   To some sad other one.

Yea, she and I have broken God’s command,
   And in His sight are branded with our shame.
   And yet I do not even know her name,
Nor ever in my life have touched her hand
Or brushed her garments.  But I chanced to stand
   Beside her in the throng!  A sweet, swift flame
   Shot from her flesh to mine—and hers the blame
Of willing looks that fed it; aye, that fanned
The glow within me to a hungry fire.
   There was an invitation in her eyes.
   Had she met mine with coldness or surprise,
I had not plunged on headlong in the mire
Of amorous thought.  The flame leaped high and higher;
   Her breath and mine pulsated into sighs,
   And soft glance melted into glance kiss-wise,
And in God’s sight both yielded to desire.

Part I

She was a light and wanton maid:
Not one whom fickle Love betrayed,
For indolence was her undoer.
Fair, frivolous, and very poor,
She scorned the thought of toil, in youth,
And chose the path that leads from truth.

More women fall from want of gold
Than love leads wrong, if truth were told;
More women sin for gay attire
Than sin through passion’s blinding fire.
Her god was gold: and gold she saw
Prove mightier than the sternest law
With judge and jury, priest and king;
So, made herself an offering
At Mammon’s shrine; and lived for power,
And ease, and pleasures of the hour.

She saw but this, life’s outer side,
No higher faith was hers to guide;
She worshipped gold, and hated toil,
And hence her youth with all its soil,
With all its sins too dark to name,
Of secret crimes and public shame,
With all its trail of broken lives,
Of ruined homes, neglected wives,
And weeping mothers.  Proud and gay
She went her devastating way
With untouched brow and fadeless grace.

Men were her puppets to control;
Unconscious of a heart or soul
She lived, and gloried in the ease
She purchased by her power to please
The eye and senses.  Life’s one woe
Which caused her pitying tears to flow
Was poverty.  Though hearts might break
And homes be ruined for her sake,
She showed no mercy.  But when need
Of gold she saw, her heart would bleed.
The lack of clothing, fire, and food
Was earth’s one pain, she understood.

His light words stung like lash of whip;
With gasping breath and ashen lip
She strove to speak, but he was gone
She kneeled and pressed her mouth upon
The latch his hand had touched, the floor
His foot had trod, and o’er and o’er
She sobbed his name, as children moan
A mother’s name when left alone.

She woke while still the lullaby
Was on her lips—then such a cry,
As souls in fabled realms below
Might utter, voiced her awful woe.

She hid her face upon her knees,
And swayed as reeds sway in a breeze.
“O Christ,” she moaned, “could I forget,
There might be something for me yet:
But though both God and man forgave,
And I should win the love I crave,
Why, memory would drive me mad.”

“You will not understand, I know,
How one like me can love you so.
It was a strange, strange thing.  Love came
So like a swift, devouring flame
And burned my frail, fair-weather boat
And left me on the waves afloat,
With nothing but a broken spar.
The distant shores seem very far;
I cannot reach them, so I sink.
God will forgive my sins, I think,
Because I die for love, like One
The good Book tells about, His Son.

When morn his glorious pinions spread,
They found the erring woman, dead.

Part II

She woke as one wakes from a deep
And dreamless, yet exhausting, sleep.

A strange confusion filled her mind,
And sorrows vague and undefined,

Like half-remembered faces pressed
To memory’s window, in her breast,

Gazed at her with reproachful eyes.
She felt a sudden, dazed surprise,

Commingled with a sense of dread,
“I did but sleep—I am not dead,

“The potion and the purpose failed,
And I still live,” she wildly wailed.

She saw a weird and shadowy crowd
With anguished lips, and shoulders bowed,

And orbs that seemed the wells of woe.
She shrieked and veiled her eyes.  “No, no!

“I am not dead!  I ache with life.
An earthly passion’s hopeless strife

“Still tortures me.”  “Yet thou art dead,”
The voice with sad insistence said.

“But love and sorrow and regret
All die with death.  I feel them yet.”

“God bade thee live, and only He
Can say when thou shalt cease to be.”

“But I was sin-sick, sad, alone—
I thought by death I could atone,

“And died that Christ might show me how.”
“Christ bore His burden, why not thou?”

“Oh! lead me to His holy feet
And let my penance be complete.”

“By thy rash deed?  Nay, nay, not so,
’Tis but perfected spirits go

“To that supreme and final goal.
A self-sought death delays the soul.

“With yonder shuddering, woeful throng
Of suicides thy ways belong.

“Close to the earth a shadowy band,
Unseen, but seeing all, they stand

“Until their natural time to die,
As God intended, shall draw nigh.

“Whose patient toil and deeds divine
Had rescued souls as sad as thine,

“Each deed a firm ascending stair
To lead beyond thy great despair.

“But now it is thy mournful fate
To linger here and meditate

“On thy dark past—to stand so near
The earthly plane that thou canst hear

“Thy lover’s voice, while old desire
Shall burn within thee like a fire,

“And grief shall root thee to the spot
To find how soon thou art forgot.

“But since thou hast endured the woes
That only fragile woman knows,

“And loved as only woman can,
Thou shalt not suffer all that man

“Must suffer when he interferes
With God’s great law.  In death’s dim spheres

“That justice waits, which men refuse.
Thy sex shall in some part excuse

“Thy desperate deed.  When God shall send
A second death to be thy friend,

“Thou need’st not fear a darker fate—
Go forth with yonder throng, and wait.”

Fair Freedom’s ship, too long adrift—
   Of every wind the sport—
Now rigged and manned, her course well planned,
   Sails proudly out of port;
And fluttering gaily from the mast
   This motto is unfurled,
Let all men heed its truth who read:
   “Republics rule the World!”

The universe is high as God!
   Good is the final goal;
The world revolves and man evolves
   A purpose and a soul.
No church can bind, no crown forbid
   Thought’s mighty upward course—
Let kings give way before its sway,
   For God inspires its force.

The world no longer looks to priest
   Or prince to know its needs;
Earth’s human throng has grown too strong
   To rule with courts and creeds.
We want no kings but kings of toil—
   No crowns but crowns of deeds;
Not royal birth but sterling worth
   Must mark the man who leads.

Proud monarchies are out of step
   With modern thought to-day,
For Brotherhood is understood,
   And thrones may pass away.
Men dare to think.  Concerted thought
   Contains more power than swords:
The force that binds united minds
   Defeats mere savage hordes.

As ocean billows undermine
   The haughty shores each hour,
Time’s sea has brought its waves of thought
   To crumble thrones of power;
And one by one shall kingdoms fall
   Like leaves before the blast,
As man with man combines to plan
   Republics formed to last.

Columbia baulked a tyrant king,
   And built upon a rock,
In Freedom’s name, a shrine whose fame
   Outlived the century’s shock.
Now France within our port has set
   Her symbol of re-birth;
Her lifted hand tells sea and land
   Republics light the earth.

The quiet graves of our country’s braves
   Through thirty Junes and Decembers
Have solemnly lain under sun and rain,
   And yet the Nation remembers.

The marching of feet and the flags on the street
   Told once again this morning,
In the voice of the drum how the day had come
   For those lowly beds’ adorning.

Then swiftly back on Time’s worn track
   His three decades seemed driven,
And with startled eyes I saw arise,
   From graves by fancy riven,

The Gray and Blue in a grand review.
   Oh! vast were the hosts they numbered,
As they wheeled and swayed in a dress parade
   O’er the graves where they long had slumbered.

And a blue flower lay on each coat of gray,
   Like forget-me-nots on a boulder;
And the gray moss lace in its Southern grace
   Was knotted on each blue shoulder.

The vision fled; but I think our dead,
   If they could come back with the living,
Would clasp warm hands o’er hostile lands,
   Forgetting old wrongs and forgiving.

’Mong the blossoms of Spring that you gather and bring
   To graves that though lowly are royal,
Let the blue flower prevail, though modest and pale,
   Since it speaks of the hue that was loyal.

But tie each bouquet with a ribbon of gray
   And lay it on memory’s altar,
For the dead who fought for the cause they thought
   Was right, and who did not falter.

When from our mortal vision
   Grown men and women go
To sail strange fields Elysian
   And know what spirits know,
I think of them as tourists,
   In some sun-gilded clime,
’Mong happy sights and dear delights
   We all shall find, in time.

But when a child goes yonder
   And leaves its mother here,
Its little feet must wander,
   It seems to me, in fear.
What paths of Eden beauty,
   What scenes of peace and rest,
Can bring content to one who went
   Forth from a mother’s breast?

It must be when the baby
   Goes journeying off alone,
Some angel (Mary, may be)
   Adopts it for her own.
Yet when a child is taken
   Whose mother stays below,
With weeping eyes, through Paradise,
   I seem to see it go.

With troops of angels trying
   To drive away its fear,
I seem to hear it crying,
   “I want my mamma here.”
I do not court the fancy,
   It is not based on doubt,
It is a thought that comes unsought
   When baby souls sail out.

I list your prattle, baby boy,
   And hear your pattering feet
With feelings more of pain than joy
   And thoughts of bitter-sweet.

While touching your soft hands in play
   Such passionate longings rise
For my wee boy who strayed away
   So soon to Paradise.

You win me with your infant art;
   But when our play is o’er,
The empty cradle in my heart
   Seems lonelier than before.

Sweet baby boy, you do not guess
   How oft mine eyes are dim,
Or that my lingering caress
   Is sometimes meant for him.

The tears of fallen women turned to ice
By man’s cold pity for repentant vice.

RUBIES

The crimson life-drops from a virgin heart
Pierced to the core by Cupid’s fatal dart.

Lost rays of light that wandered off alone
   And down through space were hurled
From that great sapphire sun beyond our own
   Pale, puny little world.

TURQUOISE

A baby went to heaven while it slept,
   And, waking, missed its mother’s arms, and wept.
Those angel tear-drops, falling earthward through
   God’s azure skies, into the turquoise grew.

The time has come when men with hearts and brains
Must rise and take the misdirected reins
Of government; too long left in the hands
Of aliens and of lackeys.  He who stands
And sees the mighty vehicle of State
Hauled through the mire to some ignoble fate
And makes not such bold protest as he can,
   Is no American,

I heard a strain of music in the street—
   A wandering waif of sound.  And then straightway
      A nameless desolation filled the day.
The great green earth that had been fair and sweet,
Seemed but a tomb; the life I thought replete
   With joy, grew lonely for a vanished May.
   Forgotten sorrows resurrected lay
Like bleaching skeletons about my feet.

Above me stretched the silent, suffering sky,
   Dumb with vast anguish for departed suns
      That brutal Time to nothingness has hurled.
The daylight was as sad as smiles that lie
   Upon the wistful, unkissed mouths of nuns,
      And I stood prisoned in an awful world.

Why dost thou shrink from my approach, O Man?
Why dost thou ever flee in fear, and cling
To my false rival, Life?  I do but bring
Thee rest and calm.  Then wherefore dost thou ban
And curse me?  Since the forming of God’s plan
   I have not hurt or harmed a mortal thing,
   I have bestowed sweet balm for every sting,
And peace eternal for earth’s stormy span.

The wild mad prayers for comfort sent in vain
   To knock at the indifferent heart of Life,
      I, Death, have answered.  Knowest thou not ’tis he,
My cruel rival, who sends all thy pain
   And wears the soul out in unending strife?
      Why dost thou hold to him, then, spurning me?

My life’s long radiant Summer halts at last,
And lo! beside my path way I behold
Pursuing Autumn glide: nor frost nor cold
Has heralded her presence; but a vast
Sweet calm that comes not till the year has passed
   Its fevered solstice, and a tinge of gold
   Subdues the vivid colouring of bold
And passion-hued emotions.  I will cast

My August days behind me with my May,
   Nor strive to drag them into Autumn’s place,
      Nor swear I hope when I do but remember.
Now violet and rose have had their day,
   I’ll pluck the soberer asters with good grace
      And call September nothing but September.

Each new invention doubles our worries an’ our troubles,
   These scientific fellows are spoilin’ of our land;
With motor, wire, an’ cable, now’-days we’re scarcely able
   To walk or ride in peace o’ mind, an’ ’tisn’t safe to stand.

It fairly makes me crazy to see how tarnal lazy
   The risin’ generation grows—an’ science is to blame.
With telephones for talkin’, an’ messengers for walkin’,
   Our young men sit an’ loaf an’ smoke, without a blush o’ shame.

An’ then they wer’n’t contented until some one invented
   A sort o’ jerky tape-line clock, to help on wasteful ways.
An’ that infernal ticker spends money fur ’em quicker
   Than any neighbourhood o’ men in good old bygone days.

But now a crazy creature has introduced the feature
   Of artificial weather, I think we’re nearly through.
For when we once go strainin’ to keep it dry or rainin’
   To suit the general public, ’twill bust the world in two,

Was, Is, and Yet-to-Be
Were chatting over a cup of tea.

In tarnished finery smelling of must,
Was talked of people long turned to dust;

Of titles and honours and high estate,
All forgotten or out of date;

Of wonderful feasts in the long ago,
Of pride that perished with nothing to show.

“I loathe the present,” said Was, with a groan;
“I live in pleasures that I have known.”

The Yet-to-be, in a gown of gauze,
Looked over the head of musty Was,

“Such wonderful pleasures are coming to me,
Such glory, such honour,” said Yet-to-be.

“No one dreamed, in the vast Has-Been,
Of such successes as I shall win.

“The past, the present—why, what are they?
I live for the joy of a future day.”

Then practical Is, in a fresh print dress,
Spoke up with a laugh, “I must confess

“I find to-day so pleasant,” she said,
“I never look back, and seldom ahead.

“Whatever has been, is a finished sum;
Whatever will be—why, let it come.

“To-day is mine.  And so, you see,
I have the past and the yet-to-be;

“For to-day is the future of yesterday,
And the past of to-morrow.  I live while I may,

“And I think the secret of pleasure is this.
And this alone,” said practical Is.

God sent us here to make mistakes,
   To strive, to fail, to re-begin,
   To taste the tempting fruit of sin,
And find what bitter food it makes,

To miss the path, to go astray,
   To wander blindly in the night;
   But, searching, praying for the light,
Until at last we find the way.

And looking back along the past,
   We know we needed all the strain
   Of fear and doubt and strife and pain
To make us value peace, at last.

Who fails, finds later triumph sweet;
   Who stumbles once, walks then with care,
   And knows the place to cry “Beware”
To other unaccustomed feet.

Through strife the slumbering soul awakes,
   We learn on error’s troubled route
   The truths we could not prize without
The sorrow of our sad mistakes.

You say that your nature is double; that life
   Seems more and more intricate, complex, and dual,
Because in your bosom there wages the strife
   ’Twixt an angel of light and a beast that is cruel—
An angel who whispers your spirit has wings,
And a beast who would chain you to temporal things.

I listen with interest to all you have told,
   And now let me give you my view of your trouble:
You are to be envied, not pitied; I hold
   That every strong nature is always made double.
The beast has his purpose; he need not be slain:
He should serve the good angel in harness and chain.

The body that never knows carnal desires,
   The heart that to passion is always a stranger,
Is merely a furnace with unlighted fires;
   It sends forth no warmth while it threatens no danger.
But who wants to shiver in cold safety there?
Touch flame to the fuel! then watch it with care.

Pain can go guised as joy, dross pass for gold,
   Vulgarity can masquerade as wit,
Or spite wear friendship’s garments; but I hold
   That passionate feeling has no counterfeit.
Chief jewel from Jove’s crown ’twas sent men, lent
For inspiration and for sacrament.

Jove never could have made the Universe
   Had he not glowed with passion’s sacred fire;
Though man oft turns the blessing to a curse,
   And burns himself on his own funeral pyre,
Though scarred the soul be where its light burns bright,
Yet where it is not, neither is there might.

Yea, it was set in Jove’s resplendent crown
   When he created worlds; that done, why, hence,
He cast the priceless, awful jewel down
   To be man’s punishment and recompense.
And that is how he sees and hears our tears
Unmoved and calm from the eternal spheres.

And these poor puppets, gazing in the dark
   At their own shadows, think the world no higher;
And when they see the all-creative spark
   In other souls, they straightway cry out, “Fire!”
And shriek, and rave, till their dissent is spent,
While listening gods laugh loud in merriment.

Be not content—contentment means inaction;
   The growing soul aches on its upward quest;
Satiety is twin to satisfaction;
   All great achievements spring from life’s unrest.

The tiny roots, deep in the dark mould hiding,
   Would never bless the earth with leaf and flower
Were not an inborn restlessness abiding
   In seed and germ, to stir them with its power.

Were man contented with his lot forever,
   He had not sought strange seas with sails unfurled,
And the vast wonder of our shores had never
   Dawned on the gaze of an admiring world.

So when the restless impulse rises, driving
   Your calm content before it, do not grieve;
It is the upward reaching of the spirit
   Of the God in you to achieve—achieve.

For ever stars are winging
   Their swift and endless race;
For ever suns are swinging
   Their mighty globes through space.
Since by his law required
To join God’s spheres inspired,
The earth has never tired,
   But whirled and whirled and whirled.
For ever streams are flowing,
For ever seeds are growing,
Alway is Nature showing
   That Action rules the world.

And since by God requested
   To be, the glorious light
Has never paused or rested,
   But travelled day and night.
Yet pigmy man, unseeing
The purpose of his being,
Demands escape and freeing
   From universal force.
But law is law for ever,
And like a mighty lever
It thrusts him tow’rd endeavour,
   And speeds him on his course.

A humble wild-rose, pink and slender,
   Was plucked and placed in a bright bouquet,
Beside a Jacqueminot’s royal splendour,
   And both in my lady’s boudoir lay.

Said the haughty bud, in a tone of scorning,
   “I wonder why you are called a rose?
Your leaves will fade in a single morning;
   No blood of mine in your pale cheek glows.

“Your coarse green stalk shows dust of the highway,
   You have no depths of fragrant bloom;
And what could you learn in a rustic byway
   To fit you to lie in my lady’s room?

“If called to adorn her warm, white bosom,
   What have you to offer for such a place,
Beside my fragrant and splendid blossom,
   Ripe with colour and rich with grace?”

“For small account is your hot-house glory
   Beside the knowledge that came to me
When I heard by the wayside love’s old story
   And felt the kiss of the amorous bee.”

To yearn for what we have not had, to sit
   With hungry eyes glued on the Future’s gate,
Why, that is heaven compared to having it
   With all the power gone to appreciate.

Better to wait and yearn, and still to wait,
   And die at last with unappeased desire,
Than live to be the jest of such a fate,
   For that is my conception of hell-fire.

In that great journey of the stars through space
   About the mighty, all-directing Sun,
The pallid, faithful Moon has been the one
Companion of the Earth.  Her tender face,
Pale with the swift, keen purpose of that race
   Which at Time’s natal hour was first begun,
   Shines ever on her lover as they run
And lights his orbit with her silvery smile.

Sometimes such passionate love doth in her rise,
   Down from her beaten path she softly slips,
And with her mantle veils the Sun’s bold eyes,
   Then in the gloaming finds her lover’s lips.
While far and near the men our world call wise
   See only that the Sun is in eclipse.

Let the wild red-rose bloom.  Though not to thee
   So delicately perfect as the white
   And unwed lily drooping in the light,
Though she has known the kisses of the bee
   And tells her amorous tale to passers-by
In perfumed whispers and with untaught grace,
Still let the red-rose bloom in her own place;
   She could not be the lily should she try.

Why to the wondrous nightingale cry hush
   Or bid her cease her wild heart-breaking lay,
   And tune her voice to imitate the way
The whip-poor-will makes music, or the thrush?
   All airs of sorrow to one theme belong,
And passion is not copyrighted yet.
Each heart writes its own music.  Why not let
   The nightingale unchided sing her song?

Not only sun-kissed heights are fair.  Below
The cold, dark billows of the frowning deep
Do lovely blossoms of the ocean sleep,
Rocked gently by the waters to and fro.
The coral beds with magic colours glow,
   And priceless pearl-encrusted molluscs heap
   The glittering rocks where shining atoms leap
Like living broken rainbows.

      Even so
We find the sea of sorrow.  Black as night
   The sullen surface meets our frightened gaze,
      As down we sink to darkness and despair.
But at the depths—such beauty! such delight!
   Such flowers as never grew in pleasure’s ways!
      Ah! not alone are sun-kissed summits fair.

Like an opera-house is the world, I ween,
Where the passionate lover of music is seen
   In the balcony near the roof:
While the very best seat in the first stage-box
Is filled by the person who laughs and talks
   Through the harmony’s warp and woof.

When Venus, mother and maker of blisses,
   Rose out of the billows, large-limbed, and fair,
She stood on the sands and blew sweet kisses
   To the salt sea-wind as she dried her hair.

And the salt sea-wind was the first to caress her
   To praise her beauty and call her sweet,
The first of the whole wide world to possess her,
   She, that creature of light and heat.

Though the sea is old with its sorrows and angers,
   And the world has forgotten why love was born,
Yet the salt sea-wind is full of the languors
   That Venus taught on her natal morn.

And now whoever dwells there by the ocean,
   And feels the wind on his hair and face,
Is stirred by a subtle and keen emotion,
   The lingering spell of that first embrace.

New Year, I look straight in your eyes—
   Our ways and our interests blend;
You may be a foe in disguise,
   But I shall believe you a friend.
We get what we give in our measure,
We cannot give pain and get pleasure;
I give you good will and good cheer,
And you must return it, New Year.

We get what we give in this life,
   Though often the giver indeed
Waits long upon doubting and strife
   Ere proving the truth of my creed.
But somewhere, some way, and for ever
Reward is the meed of endeavour;
And if I am really worth while,
New Year, you will give me your smile.

You come with a crown on your brow,
   New Year, without blemish or spot;
Yet you, and not I, sir, must bow,
   For time is the servant of thought
Whatever you bring me of trouble
Shall turn into good, and then double,
If my spirit looks up without fear
To the Source that you came from, New Year.

The age is too diffusive.  Time and Force
   Are frittered out and bring no satisfaction.
   The way seems lost to straight determined action.
   Like shooting stars that zig-zag from their course
   We wander from our orbit’s pathway; spoil
The rôle we’re fitted for, to fail in twenty.
Bring empty measures, that were shaped for plenty,
   At last as guerdon for a life of toil.
There’s lack of greatness in this generation
   Because no more man centres on one thought.
   We know this truth, and yet we heed it not:
The secret of success is Concentration.

Thoughts do not need the wings of words
   To fly to any goal.
Like subtle lightnings, not like birds,
   They speed from soul to soul.

Hide in your heart a bitter thought—
   Still it has power to blight;
Think Love—although you speak it not
   It gives the world more light.

Luck is the tuning of our inmost thought
   To chord with God’s great plan.
      That done, ah! know,
Thy silent wishes to results shall grow,
And day by day shall miracles be wrought.
Once let thy being selflessly be brought
   To chime with universal good, and lo!
   What music from the spheres shall through thee flow!
What benefits shall come to thee unsought!

Shut out the noise of traffic!  Rise above
   The body’s clamour!  With the soul’s fine ear
      Attune thyself to harmonies divine—
All, all are written in the key of Love.
   Keep to the score, and thou hast naught to fear;
      Achievements yet undreamed of shall be thine.