The Lord He scanned His children,
 His good, well-meaning children,
 And He murmured as He saw them
 Where they came and paused and passed;
 “I will drag them I will drive them
 Through the fourfold Hells of Torture,
 And—I will test the product
 That comes back to me at last.”
His children came—His children paused—
 His children slowly passed Him—
 And for the sweat upon the brow
 And scar upon the cheek,
 He heaped the burdens higher—
 He cut and smote and lashed them—
 And as they swayed and tottered
 He hurled them spent and weak.
They cast an eye, a gleaming eye,
 Above to where they sought Him—
 But blank the empty skies gave back,
 And blank the heavens stared.
 And even they with riven heart,
 Who strove to hide the hiding,
 He drove the scalpel deeper,
 That the inmost core lay bared.
At last He took the Test-Tubes
 And the Acids of the Ages,
 And he lit the Mighty Forges
 With the Fires of the Years,
 And He turned and smote and hammered,
 And He poured and paused and pondered,
 Till a clear precipitate formed ’neath
 A residue of tears.
Across the outer spaces—
 Beyond the last least sun-path,
 He called them gently homeward
 And He murmured as they passed,
 “I have driven ye and dragged ye
 Through the fourfold Hells of Torture,
 And—I will keep the product
 That comes back to me at last.”

THE PORT O’ LOST DELIGHT

Some call it Fame or Honor—
 Some call it Love or Power—
 Whence running rails and bellied sails
 The four-banked galleons tower.
 To each the separate vision—
 To each the guiding light—
 Where, ’bove the dim horizon lifts
 The Port o’ Lost Delight.
’Mid mighty cheers and the hope of years
 They swung the good Ship free,
 And with laughter brave she took the wave
 Of the wonderful, whispering sea.
Over the scud of the white-capped flood—
 Over the strong, young days—
 Over the lift of the chaff-churned drift
 And the mist of the moonlit haze—
Running the lights o’ the Ports-o’-Call,
 Where the beckoning beacons shine;
 But she passed them by with callous eye,
 Nor saw the luring sign.
Piercing the glow of the ocean’s dawn,
 As slow the seas unfold;
 Scudding again across the plain
 Of rippling, sunset gold.
Joyous and fair in the brine-wet air,
 Where the phosphor bow-wave slips,
 And the Wraiths of the Deep their secrets keep
 Of the tale o’ the passing ships.

II

Till there lifted a wondrous Haven
 Across the swinging main,
 As ne’er before had lifted—
 Nor e’er might lift again.
Clear it shone, each gleaming stone,
 Mystic, white and far,
 Castle and tree above the sea
 Where the lilac combers are.
And over all there came a call,
 As a Siren’s soft refrain—
 Nor ever a helm to guide her,
 The Good Ship turned again.
Swift o’er the back-set breakers
 She plunged against the wind,
 And never a look to left or right,
 And never a thought behind:
Swinging, swaying, singing,
 With all her canvas spread,
 And bending spars and laughter
 She fast and faster sped.
A little space—a little space—
 A little nearer, then—
 The Haven sank from the sunset sea,
 And the sea was a waste again.

III

As the quivering stag at the bullet’s sting,
 Who knew not harm was nigh,
 So shook the Ship by seam and seam
 In the death that may not die.
And though it sailed o’er every wave,
 By reef and barrier bar,
 ’Neath the glare of the South Seas’ scorching sun
 And the gleam of the lone North Star.
Though it lifted the lights o’ the Ports-o’-Call,
 By green and crimson beam,
 It never lifted the Light again—
 The Light that fled as a dream.
Over a blue-black endless sea—
 Over a timeless void—
 Callous and careless plunged the Ship
 That never a storm destroyed.
Skimming the foaming coral reef—
 Daring the mid-deep wind—
 Clipping the roar of the white lee shore
 Where the Gods of Chance run blind.
Full belly sail before the gale—
 With scuppers churning green—
 And eyes set dead in a figure-head
 That dipped in the troughs between:
That rose and fell and cut the swell—
 Or knew the day or night;
 That rose and fell to the soundless bell
 Of the Port o’ Lost Delight.

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

O’er the rock of all eternal—
 Over sacred soil ye’ve trod;
 Whither king and priest and people
 Make their mockery of God.
Like the rolling of an organ
 Down the mighty nave of Time,
 In the hush of Things Supernal
 Ye have sung of Things Sublime.
Living lilt beyond the starlight—
 Living light beyond the spheres—
 With a calm majestic cadence
 Came the call of all the years.
As a pause across the storm-path—
 As the swaying starlit sea—
 As the faith of little children—
 Ye have writ ETERNITY.

KING BAMBOO

A BALLAD OF THE EAST INDIES

I build them boats and houses—
 I check their mountain roads—
 I bear their double burdens—
 The squeaking, creaking loads.
 Adown the broken hill sides
 My long, high pipings run,
 To bring their water to them
 Adripping ’neath the sun.
And when from spring and river
 The weary climbers strain,
 ’Tis I who hold the nectar
 To bring them life again.
 I am the quivering bridges
 That span the deep ravine—
 I am the matted fences
 That twist and wind between.
When ye sing of the lace Tjemara tree—
 When ye speak of the swaying Palm—
 When ye talk of the ferned Pitcairnia,
 And the monkey’s wild alarm:
When ye tell of the blazing sunsets—
 When ye know ye are nearly through—
 Bend ye a knee to a Sovereign Lord—
 As my flat-nosed children do.

MARK TWAIN

Died, April 21st, 1910

Fresh as the break o’ the dawning—
 Clear as the sunlit pool;
 Ye came on a World of weariness—
 Lord of a kingly school.
Shuttle and lathe and hammer—
 Mill and mine and mart—
 They paused awhile to linger and smile—
 Children again in heart.
And a World of work and trouble
 Bent to their tasks anew,
 With strength reborn of the joyous morn
 Made manifest by you.
 . . . . . . . . . .
Again the marts are silenced—
 There’s a hush o’er land and sea—
 With only the sobs of a Nation,
 That loved and honored thee.

THE SUMMIT

Out of the murky valleys
 By the sweat of brow and brain;
 Out of the dank morasses—
 On to the spreading plain:
 Climbing the broken ranges—
 Falling and driving through,
 While the toil and tears of the countless years
 Bid ye back to the task anew.
Glory and fame and honor
 Perched on the distant peak—
 Beckoning over land and sea
 To the gaze of the men who seek.
 Lifting the faltering footstep—
 Bathing the tired brow,
 Till out of the lanes of the sunken plains
 Ye come to the golden Now.
Far spread the gleaming foot hills,
 And the deep, green vales between;
 Fair lift the distant coast-lines
 And the water’s shifting sheen—
 And weary, ye pause on the Summit
 For the first victorious breath,
 When a hand at your elbow beckons—
 And ye know that the hand is Death.

THE LITTLE BRONZE CROSS

THE VICTORIA CROSS IN THE CROWN JEWELS ROOM OF THE TOWER OF LONDON

Glittering—glaring—glistening—
 In pompous, proud array;
 Maces and crowns and sceptres—
 Orders and ribbons gay:
 Bright in the white electric light;
 Caged and guarded there;
 Symbol and sign that the luck of line
 A king or a cad might wear.
Blinking—blinding—blazing—
 The crown-topped hillock shone,
 And the gaping crowd in voices loud
 Coveted gilt and stone.
 Coveted idle gilt and stone,
 Though never stopped to stare
 At a little cross on the other side,
 Half hid in the alcove there.
But slowly into the Tower
 Through the narrow windows crept,
 The Winds of the Outer Marches—
 The Winds that had seen and wept
At Ladysmith—Trafalgar—
 Sebastopol—Lahore;
 Khartoum—Seringapatam—
 Kabul and Gwalior.
The breath of the red Sirocco
 That sweeps from the white Soudan:
 The winds that beat through the Kyber Pass
 Where the blood of England ran:
 The winds that lift o’er the Great South Drift—
 O’er the veldt and the frozen plain—
 They stooped and kissed the little bronze cross,
 And went on their way again.
And the blaze of crowns and sceptres—
 The power and pomp of kings;
 And the glare of the glittering Orders—
 The tinsel of Little Things,
 Paled in the ancient Tower—
 Faded and died alone,
 And only a cross—For Valour—
 With mystic brightness shone.

KEATS

Who, in a spirit of supersensitive self-abnegation, had placed upon his tombstone that here lay “one whose name is writ in water.”

If your name is writ in water,
 As your humble tombstone saith,
 Then it forms a crystal fountain
 Born to mock at mortal death.
If your name is writ in water,
 ’Tis the water of the stream
 Where the wise of all the nations
 Stoop to drink and stay to dream.
If your name is writ in water,
 It has flowed into the sea
 Of the ages past and present—
 And of Immortality.

CHRISTMAS

Childish prattle and merry laugh
 And the joy of Christmas-tide,
 And the old are young as the gay bells fling
 Their messages far and wide.
Steaming pudding and lighted tree
 And the litter of scattered toys,
 We’re all of us children again to-day
 Along o’ the girls and boys.
(Back behind the happy faces
 Lifts another looking through?
 Drop your merry mask and tell me
 What does Christmas mean to you?)
Laughter long of the joyous throng,
 Festival, fun and feast,
 And there’s never a care in the echoing air
 In the joy of a year released.
There’s never a care in the echoing air—
 There’s never a break in the song—
 And we rise with the rest when the children are blessed
 And the hours have galloped along.

TUCK AWAY—LITTLE DREAMS

His nose was pressed to the grindstone—
 His shoulders bent to the wheel,
 One of the numbered millions
 That bore no right to feel.
 Child of a callous calling—
 Waif of a wilful day;
 I heard him murmur beneath his breath—
 “Tuck away—little dreams—tuck away.”
The loom and lathe and ledger—
 Pencil and square and drill—
 They saw his pain and they laughed again
 As hardened headsmen will.
 While ’neath their chains and chiding,
 Through the gloom of the endless day,
 I heard him murmur beneath his breath—
 “Tuck away—little dreams—tuck away.”
I saw him going down the hill—
 I saw him pause, and start,
 And bend again to the grinding grain—
 Lord of a broken heart.
The sunset shadows lengthened—
 The earth was turning gray,
 As I caught the breath of the living death—
 “Tuck away—little dreams—tuck away.”

BLOODY ANGLE

July 3, 1863; July 3, 1913

THE SPIRIT OF BLOODY ANGLE SPEAKS.

I saw them charge across the field
 The Stars and Bars above them,
 I saw them fall in hundreds—
 I heard the rebel yell.
 Behind me, ’neath the Stars and Stripes,
 I watched the blue coats pouring
 Into the men of Pickett
 The flaming vials of Hell.
I thought of Yorktown—Bunker Hill—
 Of Valley Forge and Monmouth.
 Again the Elders signed our birth—
 The great Bell tolled anew.
 And I closed my eyes and shuddered—
 And I looked to the Lord of Battle—
 And I prayed, “Forgive them Father,
 For they know not what they do.”
I saw them striding o’er the field—
 A gray-clad, aged remnant;
 I heard again across the plain
 The piercing rebel call.
Behind me, ’neath a peaceful sky,
 I saw the blue coats standing—
 I saw the columns meet—clasped hands—
 Above my battered wall.
I knew my blood-stained conscience—
 My reeking rowels were whitened.
 I saw the line of Sections
 Fade dim and die away.
 And Phœnix-like, from fire and hate,
 A reunited nation
 Rose up to bless her children,
 Forever and for aye.

THE MICROBE

The Microbe said—“There is no Man—
 I know there may not be:
 I cannot hear his voice that sings—
 I cannot see his arm that swings—
 I cannot feel his mind that flings
 My earth-born destiny.”
The Man-Child said—“There is no God—
 I know there may not be:
 I cannot pause and meet His eye—
 I cannot see His form on high—
 I only know an empty sky
 Stares mocking back at me.”

THE SEAS

Purple seas and garnet seas, emerald seas and blue,
 Foaming seas and frothing seas spraying rainbow dew:
 Laughing seas and chaffing seas, gay in the morning light,
 Endless seas and bendless seas ayawn in the starless night.
Seas that reach o’er the long white beach
 Where the clean-washed pebbles roll,
 And the nodding groves and the coral coves
 And the deep-toned voices toll.
Seas that lift the broken drift
 And crash through the crag-lined fjord—
 Seas that cut the channel’s rut
 With the thrust of a mighty sword.
Seas that brood in silent mood
 When the midnight stars are set—
 Seas that roar as a charging boar
 Till the rails of the bridge run wet.
Seas that foam where the porpoise roam
 And the spouting whale rolls high—
 Seas that use in the sunset hues
 Till all is a blended sky.
Seas that reek with the golden streak
 And the flash of phosphor fire—
 Seas that glance in a moonlit dance
 With feet that never tire.
Seas that melt in the mist-hung belt
 When sky and waters close—
 Seas that meet the day’s retreat,
 Amber and gold and rose.
Purple seas and garnet seas, emerald seas and blue,
 Foaming seas and frothing seas spraying rainbow dew:
 Laughing seas and chaffing seas, gay in the morning light,
 Endless seas and bendless seas ayawn in the starless night.

GOD’S ACRE

I’m drivin’ backward to the farm—
 The harvest day is done,
 And I’m passing by God’s Acre
 At the setting o’ the Sun:
 And I slow the homing horses—
 For I must soliloquize
 On that white crop standin’ silent
 Against the crimson skies.
I guess there’s tares aplenty—
 And I guess there’s lots o’ chaff,
 And I guess there’s many stories that
 Ed make a feller laugh.
 And I guess there’s mebbe stories
 Ed make a feller weep,
 And the Angels kind o’ whisper
 As around the stones they creep.
Well, the Lord He up and planted—
 And the Harvest’s come to head;
 (And He shore is most particular
 When all is done and said).
But I reckon when it’s sifted,
 And the Crop is in the bin,
 It’ll be a durned hard sinner
 As the Lord ain’t gathered in.

GOLD

From the green Cycadeæn ages,
 From the gloom of the Cambrian fen,
 From the days of the mighty mammoth
 And the years of the dog-toothed men,
 I’ve lifted ye clear to the summits—
 A toy of the upper air—
 I’ve dashed ye down to the pits again
 To laugh at your despair.
I beckoned across the chasm
 To watch ye stumble in,
 And never a light to left or right
 On the crags of shame and sin.
 I called ye over mountains—
 I called ye over seas—
 And ye came in hosts from all the coasts
 To taste of the tainted breeze.
Honor and King and Country—
 Sire and Seed and God—
 Ye have given all to the Siren’s call
 When I but chose to nod.
 Ye have given all to the Siren’s call—
 To the mock of the Siren’s strain—
 Ye have made a choice and never a voice
 May bid ye back again.

THE LEGION

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA REUNION ODE

Across the hill I saw them come—
 A deep-ranked serried legion.
 Across the hill I saw them come—
 The faithful cohorts there.
 Bank, bar and bench—mine, mart and trench—
 From every clime and region,
 In manly might and majesty—
 And I knew the sight was fair.
I saw them halt against the hill
 In loyal lines unbroken;
 I heard them answer to the Roll,
 Nor ever missed a name;
 For they foregathered past recall
 Were there by every token,
 As, ’cross the valley to a man
 The thundering echoes came.
I saw them passing o’er the hill
 In serried ranks unbroken;
 ’Twas stirrup touching stirrup
 In the sunshine and the rain.
And good the pride to see them ride
 With strength renewed and spoken,
 Till love of Pennsylvania
 Should call them home again.

THE ALTAR

UPON THE APENNINE HILL OF ROME

’Neath the gardens of the Emperors
 Unnoticed you may pass
 A little altar nestling
 In the poppies and the grass.
 No gorgeous columns flank it,
 Where priest or Vestal trod—
 Only the carven words that sing—
 “To the Unknown God.”
The haughty praetor scanned it
 With humble, thoughtful air—
 The base-born slave espied it
 With sullen, frightened stare:
 The Roman matron touched it,
 And went upon her way—
 The gladiator saw it,
 And paused awhile to pray.
 Even the passing Cæsar
 Bowed the imperial head,
 With faltering eyes that swept the skies
 In reverent fear and dread.
The arching heavens domed it
 With royal lapis blue—
 The soft Campania’s whisper
 Brought the sunshine and the dew:
 The candles of the firmament
 Bent down their brightest rays,
 Where, midst their Pagan Pantheon
 A People paused to gaze.

THE SONG OF THE AEROPLANE

I scan your mighty fortresses—
 I scorn your splendid fleets—
 I chart your chosen cities—
 Trenches and lanes and streets.
No secret ’neath the heavens,
 No tale of land or sea,
 But bares the breast at my behest
 To stand revealed to me.
I pierce the rainbow’s bending,
 Uncovering fold on fold,
 Till I come to the arch’s ending
 Where lies the pot of gold.
I romp in the crimson sunset—
 I mount the wings o’ the dawn—
 I glide o’er the brakes and marshes
 To laugh at the startled fawn.
Never a mark may scorn me,
 From the noise of the rising quail
 To the topmost peak where the eagles seek
 Their home in the driving gale.
Where lies the last least wilderness
 Man may not dare to know—
 Where stands the unscaled mountain,
 Fair crowned with virgin snow:
Where hide the hidden ages—
 Where flow the golden streams—
 Where lurks the land of Crœsus
 Or the Lotus-land o dreams:
Up through the rushing firmament,
 With never halt or toll,
 I bear ye far till ye come where are
 The gates of the cherished goal.
 . . . . . . . . . .
On the wonderful things I show you
 Lucullus-like ye dine—
 For the wonderful thoughts I bring you
 Ye love and are wholly mine.

PACK YOUR TRUNK AND GO

If you meet a little fräulein
 As pretty as a rosebud,
 And eyes that make your silly heart-strings
 Thump and bump and glow—
 Don’t stand and linger dawdlin’
 When you know you’re getting maudlin,
 But call yourself a bally fool
 And pack your trunk and go.
If the mocking, hollow laughter,
 Like the creaking of a rafter,
 Greets you—standing watching after
 At the Chance you didn’t know:
 Sneering in its craven power
 Comes to seek you by the hour,
 Try the palm-grove, veldt or paddy—
 Pack your trunk and go.
If the skies are rent asunder
 O’er some hasty little blunder,
 And you start to really wonder
 How wise some people grow:
 Let the empty carp-heads haggle—
 Let the teacup headwear waggle—
Just tell ’em all to run along—
 And pack your trunk and go.
If the silent blades are dipping
 And the green canoes are slipping
 By the birches white and dripping
 In the crimson after-glow:
 And the harvest-moon is rising
 With a fullness most surprising—
 It’s summer on the northern lakes
 So pack your trunk and go.
If the Faith your Fathers taught you
 And the Land your Fathers wrought you,
 (The Land their blood has bought you),
 Shall hear the bugles blow—
 Don’t watch in doubt and waiting,
 Don’t stand procrastinating,
 But say good-bye with laughing eye
 And pack your trunk and go.
Where the coral turns to cactus,
 And the cactus turns to harvest,
 And the harvest turns to hemlock,
 And the hemlock turns to snow:
 By the phosphor-bordered beaches—
 By the endless, bendless reaches—
 You will find him where the Whisper bade him
 Pack his trunk and go.

WOMAN

A REPLY TO RUDYARD KIPLING

“A woman is only a woman”—
 These are the words you spoke.
 And you deemed they were bright and caustic—
 And you thought you had made us a joke.
 Well, we who have been in the Tropics,
 Who’ve noted the Eastern “way,”
 ’May be we should half forgive you
 For some of the things you say.
When the Cave-man spat on his neighbor
 And smote him hip and thigh—
 When the Bronze-man slivered the boulders
 Where the tin and the copper lie—
 When the Iron-man reared him bridges
 And engines of steam and steel—
 What was the Light that lifted them,
 And bade them to live and to feel?
When the sunshine turns to shadow—
 And the shadow turns to night;
 When faith and fair intention
 Have fought them a failing fight;
When Hell has drawn nearest—
 And God is very far—
 Mayhap ye then can tell us who
 The Ministering Angels are?
A rose is only a flower—
 Can ye bring us the bud more rare?
 “A woman is only a woman”—
 Can ye show us the work more fair?
 Harrie ye all Creation—
 Look ye without surcease,
 And when ye are weary and broken, kneel—
 To your Master’s masterpiece.

NIPPON

Trust ye the Nations of the Earth
 From sea to farthest sea—
 But trust ye not, Oh trust ye not
 The wily Japanee.
Truth? A jest o’ the High and Low—
 A juggler’s tossing toy—
 A two-faced guile and a child-like smile—
 (Oh Innocence sans alloy!)
Honor? An empty mockery
 Beneath the Sunrise Sky;
 A hollow, vain, fanatic strain
 That lifts with the loud “Banzai!”
Virtue? Not even a figurehead,
 So scarce indeed thou art.
 Rank to the core a shameless sore
 In a yet more shameless heart.
Faith? A faithless phantom
 That knows no law or creed.
 To flare and wane for the moment’s gain,
 And serve the moment’s need.
Trust ye the Nations of the Earth
 From sea to farthest sea—
 But trust ye not, Oh trust ye not
 The wily Japanee.

THE NEW BARD

They had sung the song how very long
 Of Love and Faith and Truth:
 And they polished fine till it ran as wine,
 With never a spot uncouth.
Mellow it spread with softened tread
 To the beat of the perfect time—
 Chastened and blest and colorless
 In stilted, vapid rhyme.
Songs of love that the angels above
 Laughed as they bended near—
 Songs of fight that the men of might
 Sneered as they stopped to hear—
Till a stronger people rising—
 They cast the cant aside,
 And they lifted free for the open sea
 Where the plunging porpoise ride.
For there lifted free from the open sea
 The voice of a bard who knew,
 And he brought them tales from the spouting whales
 Where only the lean gulls flew.
And he brought them tales from the coral bight
 Where the lilac waters spend,
 And the ceaseless sift of the phosphor drift
 Where the palm-lined beaches bend.
But better than all through the endless pall
 His clear-shot wordings ran,
 And the tale he bore by peace and war
 Was the heart of his fellow-man.
Under the ragged raiment—
 Under the silken sheen—
 They caught the worth of the spinning Earth,
 And the black and the gold between.
For ’neath a coat of roughest hide,
 And ’neath the rugged brink,
 He covered whole the yearning Soul—
 The Soul of the Men Who Think.
The Little Things with mystic wings
 That flitting merrily,
 Bind West and East and best and least,
 From sea to outer sea.
The Little Things with mystic wings,
 Hidden the eons through—
 From his Children’s gaze he swept the haze,
 And his Children seeing—knew
Each throbbing lane of pulse and brain—
 The far-flung Brotherhood:
 The thoughts untold and the hopes unrolled—
 And they answered him where they stood:
“In measures strong we’ve heard your song,
 And the warm blood mounts again;
 And we scorn the beat of the stifled street
 And strike for the open main.
“Far back—far back—we leave the plains
 To the little hurrying hosts,
 And over the seas in the scud-wet breeze
 We lift for the Land o’ Ghosts.
“For the Land o’ Ghosts and the laughing coasts
 And the goal we hope to win—
 Though ne’er we reach the beckoning beach,
 Ye have let us look within.
 . . . . . . . . . .
“Though ne’er we reach the beckoning beach—
 Though it fades ere we leap to land,
 Ye have made us rife with the strength of life—
 Ye have spoke ... and we understand.”

FATHER TIME