The Project Gutenberg EBook of Hello, Boys!, by Ella Wheeler Wilcox (#11 in our series by Ella Wheeler Wilcox) Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the header without written permission. Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is important information about your specific rights and restrictions in how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. **Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** **eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** *****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** Title: Hello, Boys! Author: Ella Wheeler Wilcox Release Date: October, 2004 [EBook #6666] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on January 10, 2003] Edition: 10 Language: English Character set encoding: ASCII
Transcribed from the 1919 Gay and Hancock edition by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
Contents:
Forward
Thanksgiving
The
Brave Highland Laddies
Men of the Sea
Ode
to the British Fleet
The German Fleet
Deep
unto deep was calling
The Song of the Allies
Ten
thousand men a day
“America will not turn
back”
War
The Hour
The
Message
“Flowers of France”
Our
Atlas
Camp Followers
Come
Back Clean
Camouflage
The
Awakening
The Khaki Boys who were not at the
Front
Time’s Hymn of Hate
Dear
Motherland of France
The Spirit of Great Joan
Speak
The
Girl of the U.S.A.
Passing the Buck
Song
of the Aviator
The Stevedores
A
Song of Home
The Swan of Dijon
Veils
In
France I saw a Hill
American Boys, Hello!
De
Rochambeau
After
The Blasphemy
of Guns
The Crimes of Peace
It
May Be
Then and Now
Widows
Conversation
I,
too
He that hath ears
Answers
How
is it?
‘Let us give thanks’
The
Black Sheep
One by one
Prayer
Be
not Dismayed
Ascension
The
Deadliest Sin
The Rainbow of Promise
They
shall not win
The greater part of these verses dealing with the war were written in France during my recent seven months’ sojourn there, and for the purpose of using in entertainments given in camps and hospitals to thousands of American soldiers.
They were the result of coming into close contact with the soldiers’ mind and heart, and were intentionally expressed in the simplest manner, without any consideration of methods approved by modern critics. The fact that I have been asked to autograph scores of copies of many of these verses (and one of them to the extent of 350 copies) is more gratifying to me than would be the highest encomiums of the purely literary critic.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
London,
October 1918.
Thanksgiving for the strong armed day,
That lifted war’s
red curse,
When Peace, that lordly little word,
Was uttered
in a voice that stirred -
Yea, shook the Universe.
Thanksgiving for the Mighty Hour
That brimmed the Victor’s
cup,
When England signalled to the foe,
‘The German
flag must be brought low
And not again hauled up!’
Thanksgiving for the sea and air
Free from the Devil’s
might!
Thanksgiving that the human race
Can lift once more
a rev’rent face,
And say, ‘God helps the Right.’
Thanksgiving for our men who came
In Heaven-protected ships,
The
waning tide of hope to swell,
With ‘Lusitania’ and
‘Cavell’
As watchwords on their lips.
Thanksgiving that our splendid dead,
All radiant with youth,
Dwell
near to us - there is no death.
Thanksgiving for the broad new
faith
That helps us know this truth.
I had seen our splendid soldiers in their khaki uniforms,
And
their leaders with a Sam Brown belt;
I had seen the fighting Britons
and Colonials in swarms,
I had seen the blue-clad
Frenchmen, and I felt
That the mighty martial show
Had no
new sight to bestow,
Till I walked on Piccadilly,
and my word!
By the bonnie Highland laddies
In their kilts
and their plaidies,
To a wholly new sensation
I was stirred.
They were like some old-time picture, or a scene from out a play,
They
were stalwart, they were young, and debonnair;
Their jaunty little
caps they wore in such a fetching way,
And they
showed their handsome legs, and didn’t care -
And they seemed
to own the town
As they strode on up and down -
Oh,
they surely were a sight for tired eyes!
Those braw, bonnie laddies
In
their kilts and their plaidies,
And I stared
at them with pleasure and surprise.
I had read about the valour of old Scotland’s warrior sons
-
How they fought to a finish, or else fell;
I
had heard the name bestowed on them by agitated Huns,
Who
called these skirted soldiers ‘Dames of Hell’;
And
I gave them right of way
On their London holiday,
As
I met them swinging down the street and Strand,
Those bonnie, bonnie
laddies
In their kilts and their plaidies,
And
I breathed a blessing on them and their land
Now the world is all rejoicing that the end of war has come -
And
no heart is any gladder than my own,
That the brutal, blatant voices
of the guns at last are dumb,
And the Dove of
Peace from out her cage has flown.
Yet, when men no more march
by,
Making pictures for the eye,
There’s
a vital dash of colour earth will lack,
When the brave Highland
laddies
Drop their kilts and their plaidies,
And
return to common clothes of grey or black!
Many the songs of the brave boys sent
Over The Top in the
battle’s thunder;
But mine is the song of the men who went
Over
the top of the waves - and under.
Men of the sea, Men of the sea,
I lift mine eyes to the Flags
unfurled -
The Flags of Victory blowing free
Over the new-born
world.
And I cry ‘Thank God! these things can be!
Thank
God, and the Men of the Sea!’
Little it matters to what they belong,
Marine or Navy - or Merchant
Ship -
To the Men of the Sea I sing my song;
A song that rises
from heart to lip.
I sing of the valour that ploughed a path
Straight through the
snares of a crafty foe,
Through billows raging with wintry wrath,
And
over the dens of the devils below.
To the splendid heroes of Jutland Bank
And the Royal Navy I
give their due;
And cheek by jowl with them all, I rank
The
brave mine-sweepers and merchant crew.
Trawler - Drifter - or English Fleet -
All are manned by the
Men of the Sea,
And all together in my heart meet,
For a boat
is a boat to the mind of me.
And who ever over the dread seas fared,
And however humble his
work or place,
To the great Christ spirit must be compared -
Since
he offered his life for the good of the race.
And how many lie in the deep-sea bed,
No man can reckon, and
no man number;
But not one Soul of them all is dead,
For death
is only the body’s slumber.
And the Men of the Mist, who from dark to dawn
On the deck or
the bridge stand guard at night,
Oft feel the presence of comrades
gone
Who keep watch with them, though veiled from sight.
Many the songs of the brave boys sent
Over The Top in the
battle’s thunder;
But mine is the song of the men who went
Over
the top of the waves - and under.
‘Invisible and silent’ - Mystery
Surrounded that
great Guardian of the Sea.
That Father - Mother - of the mighty
main.
While loud in valley and on field and hill -
And over
anguished plain
The battles thundered. God himself is still
And
hidden from men’s view; and it were meet
That this subliminal
force
Should move in utter silence on its course
Invisible
- Inaudible - till that hour
When Time, Fate’s Minister,
should speak and say -
‘Come forth! and show thy power!’
When
Time commands, even the gods obey.
‘Invisible and silent’; yet the foe
Was driven from
the Sea. All impotent
The brazen braggart went.
While
commerce sent her brave ships to and fro;
And from Columbia’s
shores there sailed away
Ten thousand men a day -
Ten thousand
men a day! who reached their goals
Bringing new courage to war-weary
souls.
Oh, silent wonder of the noisy sea!
Though alien, with the blood
of Bunker Hill
Down filtering through my veins, the heart of me
Seems
with a mingled love and awe to fill
And overflow at thought of
that sublime,
Unparalleled large hour of Time;
When bloodless
Victory saw the foes’ flag furled -
That insolent menace
to a righteous world.
Great Britain’s Fleet unshaken in its might,
Proclaimed
itself again in all men’s sight
The Mistress of the Main.
Fair Freedom’s friend,
May peace and glory on thy path attend.
Lie down, and let the billows hide your shame,
Oh, shorn and
naked outcast of the seas!
You who confided to each ocean breeze
Your
coming conquests, and made loud acclaim
Of your own grandeur and
exalted fame;
You who have catered to they world’s disease;
You
who have drunk hate’s wine, and found the lees;
Lie down!
and let all men forget your name!
You dreamed of world dominion! you! the spawn
Of hell and hatred
- Foe to all things free -
Sworn enemy to honour, truth and right;
Too
poor a thing now for the Devil’s pawn,
Let the large mercy
of the outraged sea
Engulf and hide you evermore from sight.
They rode through the bannered city -
The King and the Commoner,
And
the hopes of the world were with them,
And the heart of the world
was astir.
For the moss-grown walls seemed falling
That have
shut away men from Kings;
And Deep unto Deep was calling
For
the coming of greater things.
They rode to an age-old Palace
Where the feet of the Mighty
go -
(A Palace that stands unshaken
Despite the boast of the
foe!)
And the King from Kings descending -
And the Man of
the People’s choice
In a Super-Man seemed blending,
And
they spoke as with one voice.
And one voice now and for ever
Will speak from sea to sea,
Wherever
the British Banner
And the Starry Flag float free.
For our
fettering chains are sundered
By the evil that turned to good,
And
Deep unto Deep has thundered
Its message of Brotherhood.
It was not a pageant of Victors -
Or a triumph hour of man,
That
ride through the bannered City,
It was part of a Mighty Plan;
And
the sound of old barriers falling
Rose there where those Rulers
trod,
For Deep unto Deep was calling
In the resonant Voice
of God.
We are the Allies of God to-day,
And the width of the earth
is our right of way.
Let no man question or ask us why,
As
we speed to answer a wild world cry;
Let no man hinder or ask us
where,
As out over water and land we fare;
For whether we
hurry, or whether we wait,
We follow the finger of guiding fate.
We are the Allies. We differ in faith,
But are one in
our courage at thought of death.
Many and varied the tongues we
speak,
But one and the same is the goal we seek.
And the goal
we seek is not power or place,
But the peace of the world, and
the good of the race.
And little matters the colour of skin,
When
each heart under it beats to win.
We are the Allies; we fight or fly,
We wallow in trenches like
pigs in a sty,
We dive under water to foil a foe,
We wait
in quarters, or rise and go.
And staying or going, or near or far,
One
thought is ever our guiding star:
We are the Allies of God to-day,
We
are the Allies - make way! make way!
All the world was wearying,
All the world
was sad;
Everything was shadow-filled;
Things
were going bad.
Then a rumour stirred all hearts
As
a wind stirs trees -
Ten thousand men a day
Coming
over seas!
Soon we saw them marching by -
God! what a
sight! -
Shoulders back, and heads erect,
Faces
full of light.
Smiling like a morn in May,
Moving
like a breeze,
Ten thousand men a day
Coming
over seas.
Weary soldiers worn with war
Lifted up their
eyes,
Shadows seemed to fade a bit,
Dawn
was in the skies.
Hope sprang to troubled hearts,
Strength
to tired knees:
Ten thousand men a day
Were
coming over seas.
France and England swarmed with them,
Khaki-clad
and young,
Filled with all the joy of life -
Into
line they swung.
Waning valour rose anew
At
the sight of these
Ten thousand men a day
Coming
over seas.
Still they come - and still they come
In their
strength and pride.
Victory with radiant mien
Marches
on beside.
Victory is here to stay,
Every
heart agrees,
With ten thousand men a day
Coming
over seas.
America will not turn back;
She did not idly
start,
But weighed full carefully and well
Her
grave, important part.
She chose the part of Freedom’s friend,
And
will pursue it, to the end.
Great Liberty, who guards her gates,
Will
shine upon her course,
And light the long, adventurous path
With
radiance from God’s Source.
And though blood dye that ocean
track,
America will not turn back.
She will not turn until that hour
When thunders
through the world
The crash of tyrant monarchies
By
Freedom’s hand down-hurled.
While Labour’s voice from
sea to sea
Sings loud, ‘My country, ’tis of thee.’
Then will our fair Columbia turn,
While all
wars’ clamours cease,
And with our banner lifted high
Proclaim,
‘Let there be Peace.’
But till that glorious day shall
dawn
She will march on, she will march on.
I
There is no picturesqueness and no glory,
No
halo of romance, in war to-day.
It is a hideous
thing; Time would turn grey
With horror, were he not already hoary
At
sight of this vile monster, foul and gory.
Yet
while sweet women perish as they pray,
And new-born
babes are slaughtered, who dare say
‘Halt!’ till Right
pens its ‘Finis’ to the story!
There is no pathway,
but the path through blood,
Out of the horrors
of this holocaust.
Hell has let loose its scalding crimson flood,
And
he who stops to argue now is lost.
Not brooms of creeds, not Pacifistic
words
Can stem the tide, but swords - uplifted swords!
II
Yet, after Peace has turned the clean white page
There
shall be sorrow on the earth for years;
Abysmal
grief, that has no eyes for tears,
And youth that hobbles through
the earth like age.
But better to play this part upon life’s
stage
Than to aid structures that a tyrant rears,
To
live a stalwart hireling torn with fears,
And shamed by feeding
on a conqueror s wage.
Death, yea, a thousand deaths, were sweet
in truth
Rather than such ignoble life.
God gave
Being, and breath, and high resolve to youth
That
it might be Wrong’s master, not its slave.
Our road to Freedom
is the road to guns!
Go, arm your sons! I say, Go, arm your
sons!
III
Arm! arm! that mandate on each wind is whirled.
Let
no man hesitate or look askance,
For from the
devastated homes of France
And ruined Belgium the cry is hurled.
Why,
Christ Himself would keep peace banners furled
Were
He among us, till, with lifted lance,
He saw
the hosts of Righteousness advance
To purify the Temples of the
world.
There is no safety on the earth to-day
For
any sacred thing, or clean, or fair;
Nor can there be, until men
rise and slay
The hydra-headed monster in his
lair.
War! horrid War! now Virtue’s only friend;
Clasp
hands with War, and battle to the end!
This is the world’s stupendous hour -
The
supreme moment for the race
To see the emptiness of power,
The
worthlessness of wealth and place,
To see the purpose and the plan
Conceived
by God for growing man.
And they who see and comprehend
That ultimate
and lofty aim
Will wait in patience for the end,
Knowing
injustice cannot claim
One lasting victory, or control
Laws
that bar progress for the whole.
This is an epoch-making time;
God thunders
through the universe
A message glorious and sublime,
At
once a blessing and a curse.
Blessings for those who seek His light,
Curses
for those whose law is might.
Ephemeral as the sunset glow
Is human grandeur.
Mortal life
Was given that souls might seek and know
Immortal
truths; and through the strife
That shakes the earth from land
to land
The wise shall hear and understand.
Out of the awful holocaust,
Out of the whirlwind
and the flood,
Out of old creeds to Bedlam tossed,
Shall
rise a new earth washed in blood -
A new race filled with spirit
power,
This is the world’s stupendous hour.
I have not the gift of vision,
I have not
the psychic ear,
And the realms that are called Elysian
I
neither see nor hear;
Yet oft when the shadows darken
And
the daylight hides its face,
The soul of me seems to hearken
For
the truths that speak through space.
They speak to me not through reason,
They
speak to me not by word;
Yet my soul would be guilty of treason
If
it did not say it had heard.
For Space has a message compelling
To
give to the ear of Earth;
And the things which the Silence is telling
In
the bosom of God have birth.
Now this is the truth as I hear it -
That
ever through good or ill,
The will of the Ruling Spirit
Is
moving and ruling still.
In the clutch of the blood-red terror
That
holds the world in its might,
The Race is learning its error
And
will find its way to the light.
And this is the Truth as I see it -
Whoever
cries out for peace,
Must think it, and live it, and be it,
And
the wars of the world will cease.
Men fight that man may awaken,
And
no longer want to kill;
Wars rage, and the heavens are shaken
That
man may learn how to be still.
In the silence he finds his Saviour -
The
God Who is dwelling within;
And only by Christ-behaviour
Is
the soul of him saved from sin.
There is only one Source - no other
-
One Light, and each soul is a ray;
And
he who would slaughter his brother,
Himself
he is seeking to slay.
Now these are the Truths we are learning
Through
evils and horrors untold;
For the thought of the race is turning
Away
from its methods of old.
And the mind of the race is sated,
With
the things that it prized of yore,
And the monster of war is hated,
As
never on earth before.
Oh, slow are God’s mills in the grinding,
But
they grind exceedingly small;
And slow is man’s soul in the
finding,
That he is a part of the All.
Through
æons and æons, his story
Is bloody
and blackened with crime;
But he will come out into glory
And
stand on the summits sublime.
He will stand on the summits of Knowledge,
In
the splendour of Light from the Source;
And the methods of church
and of college
Will all of them change by his
force.
For the creeds that are blind and cruel,
And
the teachings by rule and by rod,
Will all be turned into fuel
To
light up the pathway to God.
This is the Truth as I hear it -
The clouds are rolling away,
And
Spirit will talk with Spirit
In the swift approaching day.
War
from the world shall be driven,
From evil shall come forth good;
And
men shall make ready for Heaven
Through living in Brotherhood.
Flowers of France in the Spring,
Your growth is a beautiful
thing;
But give us your fragrance and bloom -
Yea, give us
your lives in truth,
Give us your sweetness and grace
To brighten
the resting-place
Of the flower of manhood and youth,
Gone
into the dust of the tomb.
This is the vast stupendous hour of Time,
When nothing counts
but sacrifice and faith,
Service and self-forgetfulness.
Sublime
And awful are these moments charged with death
And
red with slaughter. Yet God’s purpose thrives
In all
this holocaust of human lives.
I say God’s purpose thrives. Just in the measure
That
men have flung away their lust for gain,
Stopped in their mad pursuit
of worldly pleasure,
And boldly faced unprecedented pain
And
dangers, without thinking of the cost,
So thrives God’s purpose
in the holocaust.
Death is a little thing: all men must die;
But when ideals die,
God grieves in Heaven.
Therefore I think it was the reason why
This
Armageddon to the world was given.
The Soul of man, forgetful of
its birth,
Was losing sight of everything but earth.
Up from these many million graves shall spring,
A shining harvest
for the coming race.
An Army of Invisibles shall bring
A glorified
lost faith back to its place.
And men shall know there is a higher
goal
Than earthly triumphs for the human soul.
They are not dead - they are not dead, I say,
These men whose
mortal forms are in the sod.
A grand Advance-Guard marching on
its way,
Their Souls move upwards to salute their God!
While
to their comrades who are in the strife
They cry, ‘Fight
on! Death is the dawn of life.’
We had forgotten all the depth and beauty
And lofty purport
of that old true word
Deplaced by pleasure - that old good word
duty.
Now by its meaning is the whole world stirred.
These
men died for it; for it, now, we give,
And sacrifice, and serve,
and toil, and live.
From out our hearts had gone a high devotion
For
anything. It took a mighty wrath -
Against great evil to
wake strong emotion,
And put us back upon the righteous path.
It
took a mingled stream of tears and blood
To cut the channel through
to Brotherhood.
That word meant nothing on our lips in peace:
We had despoiled
it by our castes and classes.
But when this savage carnage finds
surcease
A new ideal will unite the masses.
And there shall
be True Brotherhood with men -
The Christly Spirit stirring earth
again.
For this our men have suffered, fought, and died.
And we who
can but dimly see the end
Are guarded by their spirits glorified,
Who
help us on our way, while they ascend.
They are not dead - they
are not dead, I say,
These men whose graves we decorate to-day.
America and France walk hand in hand;
As one, their hearts beat
through the coming years:
One is the aim and purpose of each land,
Baptized
with holy water of their tears.
To-day they worship with one faith,
and know
Grief’s first Communion in God’s House of
Woe.
Great Liberty, the Goddess at our gates,
And great Jeanne d’Arc,
are fused into one soul:
A host of Angels on that soul awaits
To
lead it up to triumph at the goal.
Along the path of Victory they
tread,
Moves the majestic cortège of our dead.
Flowers of France in the Spring,
Your growth is a beautiful
thing;
But give us your fragrance and bloom -
Yea, give us
your lives in truth,
Give us your sweetness and
grace
To brighten the resting-place
Of
the flower of manhood and youth,
Gone into the
dust of the tomb.
Not Atlas, with his shoulders bent beneath the weighty world,
Bore
such a burden as this man, on whom the Gods have hurled
The evils
of old festering lands - yea, hurled them in their might
And left
him standing all alone, to set the wrong things right.
It is the way the Fates have done since first Time’s race began!
They
open up Pandora’s box before some chosen man;
And then, aloof,
they wait and watch, to see if he will find
And wake the slumbering
God that dwells in every mortal’s mind.
Erect, our modern Atlas stands, with brave uplifted head,
And
there is courage in his eyes, if in his heart be dread.
Not dread
of foes, but dread of friends, who may not pull together,
To bring
the lurching ship of State safe through the stormy weather.
Oh, never were there wilder waves or more stupendous seas,
Or
rougher rocks or bleaker winds, or darker days than these.
Not
Washington, not Lincoln knew so grave an hour of Time
As he who
now stands face to face with War’s world-shaking crime.
His brain is clear, his soul is brave, his heart is just and right,
He
asks no honours of the earth, but favour in God’s sight;
His
aim is not to wear a crown or win imperial power,
But to use wisely
for the race life’s terrible great hour.
O Liberty, who lights the world with rays that come from God,
Shine
on Columbia’s troubled track, and make it bright and broad;
Shine
on each heart, and give it strength to meet its pains and losses,
And
give supernal strength to one who bears the whole world’s crosses;
Take
from his thought the fear of friends who may not pull together,
And
bring the glorious ship of State safe through wild waves and weather.
In the old wars of the world there were camp followers,
Women
of ancient sins who gave themselves for hire,
Women of weak wills
and strong desire.
And, like the poison ivy in the woods
That
winds itself about tall virile trees
Until it smothers them, so
these
Ruined the bodies and the souls of men.
More evil were
they than Red War itself,
Or Pestilence, or Famine. Now in
this war -
This last most awful carnage of the world -
All
the old wickedness exists as then:
But as a foul stream from a festering fen
Is met and scattered
by a mountain brook
Leaping along its beautiful, bright course,
So
now the force
Of these new Followers of the camp has come
Straight
from God’s Source
To cleanse the world and cleanse the minds
of men.
Good women, of great courage and large hearts,
Women
whose slogan is self-sacrifice,
Willing to pay the price
God
asks of pioneers, now play their parts
In this stupendous drama
of the age
As Followers of the Camps.
They come in the name of God our Father,
They come in the name
of Christ our Brother,
They come in the name of All Humanity,
To
give their gold, their labour, and their love
To help the suffering
souls in this war-riddled earth,
The New Women of the Race -
The
New Camp Followers -
The Centuries shall do honour to their names.
This is the song for a soldier
To sing as
he rides from home
To the fields afar where the battles are
Or
over the ocean’s foam:
‘Whatever the dangers waiting
In
the lands I have not seen,
If I do not fall - if I come back at
all,
Then I will come back clean.
‘I may lie in the mud of the trenches,
I
may reek with blood and mire,
But I will control, by the God in
my soul,
The might of my man’s desire.
I
will fight my foe in the open,
But my sword shall
be sharp and keen
For the foe within who would lure me to sin,
And
I will come back clean.
‘I may not leave for my children
Brave
medals that I have worn,
But the blood in my veins shall leave
no stains
On bride or on babes unborn;
And
the scars that my body may carry
Shall not be
from deeds obscene,
For my will shall say to the beast, Obey!
And
I will come back clean.
‘Oh, not on the fields of slaughter
And
not in the prison-cell,
Or in hunger and cold is the story told
By
war, of its darkest hell.
But the old, old sin of the senses
Can
tell what that word may mean
To the soldiers’ wives and to
innocent lives,
And I will come back clean.’
Camouflage is all the rage.
Ladies in their fight with age -
Soldiers
in their fight with foes -
Demagogues who mask and pose
In
the guise of statesmen - girls
Black of eyes with golden curls
-
Politicians, votes in mind,
Smiling, affable and kind,
All
use camouflage to-day.
As you go upon your way,
Walk with
caution, move with care;
Camouflage is everywhere!
I said, ‘I will place my heart, my heart all broken,
Beside
the world’s torn heart, that it may know
The comradeship
of sorrow that is not spoken,
But is carried
on wings of all the winds that blow.
I will go homeless into homes
of grieving,
And find my own grief easier to
be borne.’
So over menacing seas I went, believing
Where
all was mourning, I would cease to mourn.
And now I am here, close to the great world-sorrow,
Here
where each heart some mighty grief has known;
But from each suffering
soul I seem to borrow
A poignant pain that but
augments my own.
The earth is like one vast tempestuous ocean,
Where
struggling beings fight for light and breath:
I feel their anguish,
feel each keen emotion -
Yet through it all,
I know there is no death.
And as we toss on billows red with slaughter,
Unto
each tortured, anguished soul I cry,
‘There are green lands
beyond this raging water,
We shall come into
harbour by and by.
Our dead dwell near, life is a thing eternal:
And
I have talked with One from that fair shore.
We are but passing
through a dream infernal;
We shall awake, we
shall be glad once more.’
Oh! it is not just the men who face the guns,
Not the fighters
at the Front alone, to-day
Who will bring the longed-for close
to the bloody fray, for those
Could not carry on that fray without
the ones
Who are working at war’s problems far away.
You are all our splendid heroes in the strife,
And we
class you with the warriors maimed and scarred,
Though you never
have been near enough the battle din to hear,
While you laboured
in the dull routine of life
In your khaki suits with sleeves that
are not barred.
You have offered up yourselves to save the world;
You have felt
the abnegation of the Christ:
And whatever work you do is a noble
work and true;
Though it be not done with banners all unfurled,
You
will find it has, in sight of God, sufficed.
While you carry back no medals when you go,
Not without you
had the fighters borne war’s brunt:
So just lift your heads
uncowed, for your country will be proud
And its lasting love and
honour will bestow
On the khaki boys who were not at the Front.
Oh, boastful, wicked land, that once was beautiful and
great,
How bitter and how black must be your self-invited fate,
While
Time goes down the centuries and sings his hymn of hate!
Time’s voice is just. His words ring true. For
as the past recedes,
The clear-eyed Future slowly writes the story
of its deeds;
And as Time toward the Infinite his ceaseless flight
is winging
He shall go singing
The hymn
of hate, of men and gods, for all your deeds of lust,
For all your
acts of cruelty and hell-concocted schemes
(More hideous than the
darkest plot of which a devil dreams)
Which sprang from your Medusa
head before it touched the dust.
Beneath the strangling hand of Fate
That strident voice of yours
Shall
hush to silence, soon or late
That Justice that endures
Will
mobilise its mighty ranks and free the human race,
Then
shall all Space,
Yea, all the chains of sphere on sphere,
With
that loud hymn be ringing,
Which Time goes singing
His
far flight winging
And all the cherubims of God that dwell in regions
o’er us
Shall swell the chorus.
Oh, boastful, wicked land, that once was beautiful and great,
How
desolate and dark must be your self-invited fate,
While Time goes
down the centuries and sings his hymn of hate!
Our Motherland, dear Motherland,
The source of beauty and of
Art,
Who but thy children understand
The love which permeates
each heart!
We see, through rainbow-tints of tears,
Thy glory
of a thousand years.
O country of the Great and Free,
We live
for thee, we live for thee,
Dear Motherland of France.
O Motherland, both blithe and brave,
What magic lies in thy
name - France!
Yet can thy radiant mien be grave,
And stern
thy ever-smiling glance.
And when thy sons and daughters know
That
enemies would lay thee low
And dim thy fame on land and sea,
We
fight for thee, we fight for thee,
Dear Motherland of France.
Dear Motherland of joy and mirth,
Dear Motherland of faith divine,
A
thousand years the wondering earth
Has seen thy star in splendour
shine.
Still shall it see that star of France
Its splendour
and its light enhance.
Dear Motherland, when it need be
We
die for thee, we die for thee,
Dear Motherland of France.
Back of each soldier who fights for France,
Ay,
back of each woman and man
Who toils and prays through these long
tense days,
Is the spirit of Great Joan.
For
the love she gave, and the life she gave,
In
the eyes of God sufficed
To crown her with light, and power, and
might,
That made her second to Christ.
And so in that hour at the Marne she came,
To
the seeing eyes of men;
And the blind of view still felt and knew
That
her spirit had come again.
And she will come in each crucial hour
And
joy shall follow despair,
For Joan sees her France on its knees
And
she hears the voice of its prayer.
There is no hate in the heart of France,
But
a mighty moral force
That takes its stand for her worshipped land,
And
cannot be swerved from its course.
For this is the way with France
to-day,
Her courage comes from faith,
And
she bends her knee ere she straightens her arm;
In
her forward rush toward death.
A jungle of beasts in the heart of the Hun -
War
to the world laid bare.
And war has revealed, that France concealed,
Only
the lion’s lair.
A lioness fighting to save her own,
She
fights as a lioness can,
And strength to the end shall the Unseen
send,
In the spirit of Great Joan.
Obscured the sun, the world is dark;
Maid of Orleans, Joan of
Arc,
Send down thy spark.
Let every heart in France be stirred,
By such an all-compelling
word
As thou once heard.
Say to each soul, ‘Lo! I am near;
My voice still speaks
in accents clear.
Be still and hear.
‘The France I saved can not be lost;
Though tempest-torn
and terror-tossed,
Count not the cost.
‘Give as the maid of Domrémy
Gave all - gave life
itself to see
Her country free.
‘Back of great France my spirit towers
To aid her through
the darkest hours
With God’s own powers!’
Maid of Orleans, Joan of Arc,
Shine through the night, speak
through the dark
The while we hark.
Oh! the maidens of France are certainly fine,
And
I think every fellow will state
That the ‘what-you-may-call-it’
coiffured way
They put up their hair is great!
And
they know how to dress, and they wear their clothes
In
a fetching, Frenchy way;
And yet to me, there is just one girl
-
The girl of the U.S.A.
I like to listen when French girls talk,
Though
I’m weak in the ‘parlez-vous’ game;
But the language
of youth in every land
Is somehow about the same,
And
I’ve learned a regular code of shrugs,
And
they seem to know what I say!
But the girl whose voice goes straight
to my heart
Is the girl of the U.S.A.
I haven’t a word but words of praise
For
these dear little girls of France;
And I will confess that I’ve
felt a thrill
As I faced their line of advance!
But
I haven’t been taken a prisoner yet,
And
I won’t be, until the day
When I carry my colours to lay
at the feet
Of a girl of the U.S.A.
Whatever the task that comes your way,
Just
take it as part of your luck.
Look it right square in the eyes,
and say,
‘This is my task, I’ll do it to-day’:
Don’t
pass the buck.
Oh! whether you cook, or whether you fight,
Or
whether you trundle a truck,
Just tackle your job and do it right:
Don’t
pass the buck.
The wheels of the earth have gone, alack!
Deep
into war’s mire and muck.
If you want to put it again on
its track,
Don’t shift your load on another man’s back:
Don’t
pass the buck.
You may thrill with the speed of your thoroughbred steed,
You
may laugh with delight as you ride the ocean,
You may rush afar
in your touring car,
Leaping, sweeping, by things that are creeping
-
But you never will know the joy of motion
Till you rise
up over the earth some day,
And soar like an eagle, away - away.
High and higher above each spire,
Till lost to sight is the
tallest steeple,
With the winds you chase in a valiant race,
Looping,
swooping, where mountains are grouping,
Hailing them comrades,
in place of people.
Oh! vast is the rapture the birdman knows,
As
into the ether he mounts and goes.
He is over the sphere of human
fear;
He has come into touch with things supernal.
At each
man’s gate death stands await;
And dying, flying, were better
than lying
In sick-beds, crying for life eternal.
Better to
fly half-way to God
Than to burrow too long like a worm in the
sod.
We are the army stevedores, lusty and virile and strong,
We
are given the hardest work of the war, and the hours are long.
We
handle the heavy boxes, and shovel the dirty coal;
While soldiers
and sailors work in the light, we burrow below like a mole.
But
somebody has to do this work, or the soldiers could not fight!
And
whatever work is given a man, is good if he does it right.
We are the army stevedores, and we are volunteers.
We did not
wait for the draft to come, to put aside our fears;
We flung them
away on the winds of fate, at the very first call of our land,
And
each of us offered a willing heart and the strength of a brawny hand.
We
are the army stevedores, and work as we must and may,
The cross
of honour will never be ours to proudly wear away.
But the men at the Front could never be there,
And the battles
could not be won,
If the stevedores stopped in their dull routine
And
left their work undone.
Somebody has to do this work; be glad that
it isn’t you!
We are the army stevedores - give us our due!
I am singing a song to the boys to-day,
A song of the home that
is far away.
And I know that an echo the word is waking
In
many a heart that is secretly aching,
Yes, almost breaking, thinking
of Home, dear Home.
But thought, dear boys, is a carrier dove,
And
it flies straight into the hearts you love.
You picture the days of your youthful joys,
The old home circle,
the girls and boys
You knew in that wonderful world of pleasure,
When
life danced on to a lilting measure;
Each scene you treasure, thinking
of Home, dear Home.
And here is a thought that is sweet and true
-
The ones you long for are longing for you.
You picture the
day when the war is done,
The duty accomplished, the victory won,
And
over the billows our ships go leaping,
Into our beautiful harbour
sweeping,
And with laughter and weeping, you go back Home, Home,
Home.
On the walls of your heart you must hang with care
This
beautiful picture, framed in prayer.
Thinking of Home, you are blazing a trail
For that glorious
day when our ships shall sail;
Where the Goddess of Liberty lights
the water
To guide you back from the fields of slaughter,
Fair
Freedom’s daughter, who welcomes us Home, Home, Home.
So
hold your vision, and work and pray,
As you dream of the Home that
is far away.
I was in Dijon when the war’s wild blast
Was at its loudest;
when there was no sound
From dawn to dawn, save soldiers marching
past,
Or rattle of their wagons in the street.
When every
engine whistle would repeat
Persistently, with meaning tense, profound,
‘We
carry men to slaughter’ or ‘we bring
Remnants of men
back as war’s offering.’
And there in Dijon, the out-gazing eye
Grew weary of the strife-suggesting
scene;
But, searching, found one quiet spot hard by
Where
war was not; a little lake whereon
Moved leisurely a stately, tranquil
swan,
Majestic and imposing, yet serene.
I was in Dijon, when no sound or sight
Woke thoughts of peace,
save this one speck of white,
Sailing ’neath skies of menace,
unafraid
While silver fountains for his pleasure played.
Dear
Swan of Dijon, it was your good part
To rest a tired heart.
Veils, everywhere float veils; veils long and black,
Framing
white faces, oft-times young and fair,
But, like a rose touched
by untimely frost,
Showing the blighting marks of sorrow’s
track.
Veils, veils, veils everywhere. They tell the cost
Of
man-made war. They show the awful toll
Paid by the hearts
of women for the crimes,
The age-old crimes by selfishness ill-named
‘Justice’
and ‘Honour’ and ‘The call of Fate’ -
High
words men use to hide their low estate.
About the joy and beauty
of this world
A long black veil is furled.
Even the face of
Heaven itself seems lost
Behind a veil. It takes a fervent
soul
In these tense times
To visualise a God so long defamed
By
insolent lips, that send out prayers, and prate
Of God’s
collaboration in dark deeds,
So foul they put to shame the fiends
of hell.
Yet One does dwell
In Secret Centres of the Universe
-
The Mighty Maker; and He hears and heeds
The still small
voice of soulful, selfless faith;
And He is lifting now the veil
of death,
So long down-dropped between those worlds and earth.
Yea!
He is giving faith a great new birth
By letting echoes from the
hidden places
Where dwell our dead, fall on love’s listening
ear.
Hearken, and you shall hear
The messages which come from
those star-spaces!
That is the reason why
God let so many
die;
That the vast hordes of suffering hearts might wake
Mighty
vibrations, and the silence break
Between the neighbouring worlds,
and lift the veil
’Twixt life on earth, and life Beyond.
All hail
To great Jehovah, Who has given life
Eternal, everlasting,
after strife!
Veils, long black veils, you shall be bridal white.
Eyes, blind
with tears, you shall receive your sight,
And see your dead alive
in Worlds of Light.
In France I saw a hill - a gentle slope
Rising above old tombs
to greet the gleam
From soft spring skies. Beyond these skies
dwells hope,
But those green graves bespeak a broken dream.
There was a row of narrow beds, new-made;
Each bore a starry
banner and a cross.
And each the name of one who, ere he played
His
rôle of warrior, met earth’s final loss.
They were so young, so eager for the fray!
And thoughts of glory
filled each boyish heart,
When over dangerous seas they sailed
away
To face the foe and play some splendid part.
But in the tedious toil, the dull routine
Which must precede
achievement on the field,
Disease, that secret enemy with mean
Sly
tactics, forced them to disarm and yield.
So they were buried on that hill in France,
Before their ears
had heard the battle din;
Before life gave them its dramatic chance
-
A lasting fame, or glorious death to win.
Yet, looking up beyond their graves of green,
I seem to see
them wearing band and star;
Men are rewarded in the Worlds Unseen
Not
for the way they die, but what they are.
Oh! we love all the French, and we speak in French
As along
through France we go.
But the moments to us that are keen and sweet
Are
the ones when our khaki boys we meet,
Stalwart and handsome and
trim and neat;
And we call to them - ‘Boys, hello!’
‘Hello,
American boys,
Luck to you, and life’s best joys!
American
boys, hello!’
We couldn’t do that if we were at home -
It never would
do, you know!
For there you must wait till you’re told who’s
who,
And to meet in the way that nice folks do.
Though you
knew his name, and your name he knew -
You never would say ‘Hello,
hello, American boy!’
But here it’s just a joy,
As
we pass along in the stranger throng,
To call out, ‘Boys,
hello!’
For each is a brother away from home;
And this we are sure is
so,
There’s a lonesome spot in his heart somewhere,
And
we want him to feel there are friends right there
In this
foreign land, and so we dare
To call out ‘Boys, hello!’
‘Hello,
American boys,
Luck to you, and life’s best joys!
American
boys, hello!’
ON THE PRESENTATION OF AN AMERICAN BANNER TO CAMP ROCHAMBEAU BY THE MARQUISE DE ROCHAMBEAU AT TOURS, FRANCE, JUNE 1, 1918
Here is a picture I carry away
On memory’s wall.
A green June day,
A golden sun in an amethyst sky,
And a beautiful
banner floating as high
As the lofty spires of the city of Tours,
And
a slender Marquise, with a face as pure
As a sculptured saint:
while staunch and true
In new-world khaki and old-world blue,
Wearing
their medals with modest pride,
Her stalwart bodyguard stand at
her side.
Simple the picture; but much it may mean
To one who reads into
and under the scene,
For there, in that opulent hour and weather,
Two
great Republics came closer together;
A little nearer came land
to land
Through the magical touch of a woman’s hand.
And
once again as in long ago
The grand old name of de Rochambeau
Shines
forth like a star, for our world to see -
Our Land of the Brave,
and our Home of the Free.
Over the din of battle,
Over the cannons’ rattle,
Over
the strident voices of men and their dying groans,
I hear the falling
of thrones.
Out of the wild disorder
That spreads from border to border,
I
see a new world rising from ashes of ancient towns;
And the rulers
wear no crowns.
Over the blood-charged water,
Over the fields of slaughter,
Down
to the hidden vaults of Time, where lie the worn-out things,
I
see the passing of kings.
There must be lonely moments when God feels
The need of prayer
-
Such lonely moments, knowing not anywhere,
In any spot or
place,
In all the far recesses of vast space,
Dwells any one
to whom His prayers may rise,
And then, methinks - so urgent is
His need -
God bids His prayers descend.
He
that has ears to hear, let him take heed,
For
much God’s prayers portend.
God flings His solar system forth to be
Finished
by beings who befit each sphere.
Not ours to pry the secrets out
of Mars;
Our work lies here.
To star-folk
leave the stars.
There must be many worlds that give God care:
Young
worlds that glow and burn,
Old worlds that freeze and fade.
This
world is man’s concern.
Methinks God must be very much dismayed,
Seeing
the use we make of earth to-day,
While loud we
pray.
Last night, in sleep, beyond the earth’s small zone,
Adventurously
my spirit went alone,
Past lesser hells and heavens, where souls
may pause
To learn the meaning of death’s larger laws,
Past
astral shapes and bodies of desire,
Past angels and archangels,
high and higher,
Until the pinnacles of space it trod,
Then,
awestruck, paused, hearing the voice of God.
‘Mortals of earth, for whom I shaped a sphere
(So spake
the Voice), ‘there rises to Mine ear
Eternal praises and
eternal pleas.
Now, after centuries, I tire of these.
Have
ye no knowledge of the Maker’s needs,
Ye who ask favours
and who praise by creeds?
Why has it not sufficed
That unto this small earth I sent great
Christ,
Divine expression of the mortal man,
To aid my plan?
‘Why ask for more when all has been refused?
Why praise
My name Who hourly am abused?
Why seek for Me or heaven, when in
you dwells
Hate’s lurid hells?
‘Persistent praises and persuasive pleas -
I tire, I tire
of these;
But I, the Maker of a billion suns,
Ask men to stop
the blasphemy of guns.’
This is God’s prayer.
(There must be many worlds that give God care.)
Musing upon the tragedies of earth,
Of each new horror which
each hour gives birth,
Of sins that scar and cruelties that blight
Life’s
little season, meant for man’s delight,
Methought those monstrous
and repellent crimes
Which hate engenders in war-heated times,
To
God’s great heart bring not so much despair
As other sins
which flourish everywhere
And in all times - bold sins, bare-faced
and proud,
Unchecked by college, and by Church allowed,
Lifting
their lusty heads like ugly weeds
Above wise precepts and religious
creeds,
And growing rank in prosperous days of peace.
Think
you the evils of this world would cease
With war’s cessation?
If
God’s eyes know tears,
Methinks He weeps more for the wasted
years
And the lost meaning of this earthly life -
This big,
brief life - than over bloody strife.
Yea; there are mean, lean
sins God must abhor
More than the fatted, blood-drunk monster,
War.
Looking from His place, looking from His high place among
the stars, God saw a peaceful land -
A land of fertile fields and
golden harvests - and great cities whose innumerable spires pierced
the vault of heaven, like bayonets of an invading army.
And God
said, speaking unto Himself aloud, God said:
‘Peace and power
and plenty have I given unto this land; and those tall steeples are
monuments to Me.
Now let My people reveal themselves, that I may
see their works, done in My name in a fertile land of peace.
I
will withdraw Mine eyes from other worlds that I may behold them, that
I may behold these people to whom I sent Christ - they whose innumerable
spires pierce My blue vault like bayonets.’
God saw the restless,
idle rich in club and cabaret,
Meat-gorged, wine-filled, they played
and preened and danced till dawn o’ day;
They played at sports;
they played at love; they played at being gay.
They were but empty,
silk-clad shells; their souls had leaked away.
He saw the sweat-shop
and the mill where little children toiled,
The sunless rooms where
mothers slaved and unborn souls were spoiled;
While those whose
greedy, selfish lives had thrust the toilers there,
He saw whirled
down broad avenues, clothed all with raiment fair.
He saw in homes made beautiful with all that gold can give
Unhappy
souls at odds with life, not knowing how to live.
He saw fair,
pampered women turn from motherhood’s sweet joy,
Obsessed
with methods to prevent or mania to destroy.
He saw men sell their
souls to vice and avarice and greed;
He heard race quarrelling
with race and creed decrying creed;
And shameful wealth and waste
He saw, and shameful want and need.
He saw bold little children come from church and schoolroom, blind
To
suffering of lesser things, unfeeling and unkind;
He heard them
taunt the poor, and tease their furred and feathered kin;
And no
voice spake from home or church to tell them this was sin.
He heard
the cry of wounded things, the wasteful gun’s report;
He
saw the morbid craze to kill, which Christian men called sport.
And then God hid His grieving face behind a wall of cloud,
On
earth they said, ‘A thunder-storm’ - but God had wept aloud.
Let us be silent for a little while;
Let us be still and
listen. We may hear
Echoes from other worlds not far a way.
City on city rising, steeple out-topping steeple,
Gaining and
hoarding and spending, and armies on battle bent,
People and people
and people, and ever more human people -
This is not all of creation,
this is not all that was meant!
Earth on its orbit spinning,
This
is not end or beginning;
That is but one of a trillion spheres
out into the ether hurled:
We move in a zone of wonder,
And
over our planet and under
Are infinite orders of beings and marvels
of world on world.
There may be moving among us curious people and races,
Folk
of the fourth dimension, folk of the vast star spaces.
They may
be trying to reach us,
They may be longing to teach us
Things
we are longing to know.
If it is so,
Voices like these are
not heard in earth’s riot,
Let us be quiet.
Classes with classes disputing, nation warring with nation,
Building
and owning and seeking to lead - this is not all!
Endless the works
of creation,
There may be waiting our call
Beings in numberless
legions,
Dwellers in rarefied regions,
Journeying Godward
like us,
Alist for a word to be spoken,
Awatch for a sign
or a token.
If it be thus,
How they must grieve at our riotous
noise
And the things we call duties and joys!
Let us be silent for a little while;
Let us be still and
listen. We may hear
Echoes from other worlds not far away.
A little time agone, a few brief years,
And there was peace
within our beauteous borders;
Peace, and a prosperous people, and
no fears
Of war and its disorders.
Pleasure was ruling goddess
of our land; with her attendant Mirth
She led a jubilant, joy-seeking
band about the riant earth.
Do you recall those laughing days, my Brothers,
And those long
nights that trespassed on the dawn?
Those throngs of idle dancing
maids and mothers
Who lilted on and on -
Card mad, wine flushed,
bejewelled and half stripped,
Yet women whose sweet mouth had never
sipped
From sin’s black chalice - women good at heart
Who,
in the winding maze of pleasure’s mart,
Had lost the sun-kissed
way to wholesome pleasures of an earlier day.
Oh! You remember them! You filled their glasses;
You
‘cut in’ at their games of bridge; you left
Your work
to drop in on their dancing classes
Before the day was cleft
In
twain by noontide. When the night waxed late
You led your
partner forth to demonstrate
The newest steps before a cheering
throng,
And Time and Peace danced by your side along.
Peace is a lovely word, and we abhor that red word ‘War’;
But
look ye, Brothers, what this war has done for daughters and for son,
For
manhood and for womanhood, whose trend
Seemed year on year toward
weakness to descend.
Upon this woof of darkness and of terror,
woven by human error,
Behold the pattern of a new race-soul,
And
it shall last while countless ages roll.
At the loud call of drums, out of the idler and the weakling comes
The
hero valiant with self-sacrifice, ready to pay the price
War asks
of men, to help a suffering world.
And out of the arms of pleasure,
where they whirled
In wild unreasoning mirth, behold the splendid
women of the earth
Living new selfless lives - the toiling mothers,
sister, daughters, wives
Of men gone forth as target for the foe.
Ah, now we know
Man is divine; we see the heavenly spark
Shining
above the smoke and gloom and dark
Which was not visible in peaceful
days.
God! wondrous are Thy ways,
For out of chaos comes construction;
out of darkness and of doubt
And the black pit of death comes glorious
faith;
From want and waste comes thrift, from weakness strength
and power
And to the summits men and women lift
Their souls
from self-indulgence in this hour,
This crucial hour of life:
So
shines the golden side of this black shield of strife.
The world was widowed by the death of Christ:
Vainly its
suffering soul for peace has sought
And found
it not.
For nothing, nothing, nothing has sufficed
To bring
back comfort to the stricken house
From whence has gone the Master
and the Spouse.
In its long widowhood the world has striven
To find diversion.
It has turned away
From the vast aweful silences of Heaven
(Which
answer but with silence when we pray)
And sought for something
to assuage its grief.
Some surcease and relief
From
sorrow, in pursuit of mortal joys.
It drowned God’s stillness
in a sea of noise;
It lost God’s presence in a blur of forms;
Till,
bruised and bleeding with life’s brutal storms,
Unto immutable
and speechless space
The World lifts up its face,
Its
haggard, tear-drenched face,
And cries aloud for faith’s
supreme reward,
The promised Second Coming of its Lord.
So many widows, widows everywhere,
The whole earth teems with
widows. Guns that blare -
Winged monsters
of the air -
And deep-sea monsters leaping through the water,
Hell
bent on slaughter,
All these plough paths for widows. Maids
at dawn,
And brides at noon, ere eventide pass on
Into the
ranks of widows: but to weep
Just for a little space; then will
grief sleep
In their young bosoms, where sweet hope belongs,
New
love will sing once more its age-old songs,
And life bloom as a
rose-tree blooms again
After
a night of rain.
There are complacent widows clothed in crêpe
Who
simulate a grief that is not real.
Through paths of seeming sorrow
they escape
From disappointed hopes to some ideal,
Or, from
the penury of unloved wives
Walk
forth to opulent lives.
And there are widows who shed all their
tears
Just at the first
In
one wild burst,
And then go lilting lightly down the years:
Black
butterflies, they flit from flower to flower
And live in the thin
pleasures of the hour;
Merging their tender memories of the dead
In
tenderer dreams of being once more wed.
But there are others: women who have proved
That loving greatly
means so being loved.
Women who through full beauteous years have
grown
Into the very body, souls, and heart
Of their dear comrades.
When death tears apart
Such close-knit bonds as these, and one
alone
Out to the larger freer life is called,
And
one is left -
Then God in heaven must sometimes be appalled
At
the wild anguish of the soul bereft,
And unto His Son must say,
‘I did not know
Mortals
could suffer so.’
But Christ, remembering Gethsemane,
Will answer softly, ‘It
was known to Me.’
God’s alchemist, old Time, will merge
to calm
That bitter anguish; but there is no balm
Save the
sweet certitude that each long day
Is
one step in a stair
That circles up to where freed spirits stay.
Widows, so many widows everywhere.
The world was widowed by the death of Christ,
And nothing,
nothing, nothing has sufficed
To bring back comfort to the stricken
house
From whence has gone the Master and the Spouse.
Hasten,
dear Lord, with Thy Millennium, Hasten and come.
We were a baker’s dozen in the house - six women and six men
Besides
myself; and all of us had known
Those benefits supposed to come
from school and church and brush and pen,
And
opportunities of being thrown
In contact with the cultured and
the gifted people of the day.
Being the thirteenth
one among six pairs
I deemed it wise to keep apart and let the
others have their say:
And from my vantage-place
upon the stairs,
Or in a corner, where I seemed to read, I listened
for some word
That would make life seem sweeter,
or cast light
Upon the goal toward which all footsteps wend: and
this was what I heard
Throughout each day and
half of every night.
The men talked business, politics, and trade;
They
told of safe investments, and great chances
For speculation.
(One man who had made
Pleasure his art, described
the newest dances
And dwelt upon each chassé, glide, and
whirl
As lovers dwell upon the charms of some fair girl.)
They talked of war, and tried to find its cause,
And
quite deplored the fact that wars must come.
But since this desperate
condition was,
They carefully computed what the
sum
Of profit might be to a land of peace,
And wondered if
times would be harder should war cease.
They spoke of games and sports; told many a story
That
made the listeners laugh; then back from these
Always they harked
to money, or the gory
And savage drama playing
overseas.
Then there were tales from club and smoking-room -
The
submarines of gossip, bringing some name doom.
The women talked of fashions and of plays,
But
more of players and their private lives;
Related tittle-tattle
of their words and ways,
Their lightning change
of husbands and of wives.
And there was chat of garments and their
price,
Of operas and balls and all that gives life spice.
Some talk there was of music, pictures, books,
But
of musicians, painters, authors, more.
The way they lived - their
methods and their looks -
The colour of their
eyes - the clothes they wore;
And whether it was true, as had been
stated,
That gifted people were quite sure to be mis-mated.
They talked of servants, menus, and disease,
And
operations. Each one came in line
With some astounding tale
to tell of these,
And of her surgeon’s
skill, which seemed divine.
But of that vast Domain where live
our dead
And where we all are hurrying, no word was said.
When we know that goal awaits each one of us a little farther
on,
When we know how an ever-increasing company of friends is gathered
there,
Why do we not speak of it in our daily conversation?
Why
do we not familiarise our minds with thoughts of worlds unseen?
There
are many beautiful things to be learned of that country.
There
are sacred books of great travellers, whose souls have cried, ‘Hail
across the border’;
There are truths which have been learned in visions and by revelations:
All
the revelations were not given to St. John alone,
All the wise
men of the world did not die two thousand years ago!
Why do we
not talk of these eternal truths,
Instead of wasting all our words
on the evanesent, the ever-changing, the trivial, and the unimportant?
There
is but one important theme, and that is Life Immortal.
I saw fond lovers in that glow
That oft-times
fades away too soon:
I saw and said, ‘Their joy I know -
I,
too, have had my honeymoon.’
A young expectant mother’s gaze
Held
earth and heaven within its scope:
My thoughts went back to holy
days -
I said, ‘I, too, have known that
hope.’
I saw a stricken mother swayed
By sorrow’s
storm, like wind-blown grass:
I said, ‘I, too, dismayed
Have
seen the little white hearse pass.’
I saw a matron rich with years
Walk radiantly
beside her mate:
I blessed them, and said through my tears,
‘I,
too, have known that high estate.’
I saw a woman swathed in black
So blind with
grief she could not see:
I said, ‘Not far need I look back
-
I, too, have known Gethsemane.’
I saw a face so full of light,
It seemed with
all God’s truths to shine:
I said, ‘I, too, have found
my sight,
I, too, have touched the Fact Divine.’
‘He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.’ - St. John the Divine.
The Spirit says unto the churches,
‘Ere
ever the churches began
I lived in the centre of Being -
The
life of the Purpose and Plan;
I flowed from the mind of the Maker
Through
nature to man.
‘I sleep in the glow of the jewel,
I
wake in the sap of the tree,
I stir in the beast of the forest,
I
reason in man, and am free
To turn on the path of Ascension
To
the god yet to be.
‘I was, and I am, and I will be;
I live
in each church and each faith
But yield to no bond and no fetter,
I
animate all with my breath;
I speak through the voice of the living
And
I speak after death.’
The Spirit says unto the churches,
‘The
dead are not gone, they are near
And my voice, when I will it,
speaks through them,
Speaks through them in messages
clear.
And he that hath ears, in the silence
May
listen and hear.’
The Spirit says unto the churches,
‘So
many the feet that have trod
The road leading up into knowledge,
The
steep narrow path has grown broad;
And the curtain held down by
old dogmas
Is lifted by God.’
What is the end of each man’s toil,
Brother,
O Brother?
A handful of dust in a bit of soil -
His name forgotten
as centuries roll,
Though blazoned to-day on Glory’s scroll;
For
the lordliest work of brain or hand
Is only an imprint made on
sand;
When the tidal wave sweeps over the shore
It
is there no more,
Brother,
my Brother.
Then what is the use of striving at all,
Brother,
O Brother?
Because each effort or great or small
Is a step
on the long, long road that leads
To the Kingdom of Growth on the
River of Deeds:
And that is the kingdom no man can gain
Till
he uses his hand and his mind and brain,
And when he has used them
and learned control
He finds his soul,
Brother,
my Brother.
And after he finds it, what is the end,
Brother,
O Brother?
Upward ever its course and trend;
For this is the
purpose and aim and plan
To seek in the soul for the Super-man
-
The man who is conscious that Heaven is near -
A bulletin
bearer from There to Here,
Finding God dwells in the spirit within
Where
He ever has been,
Brother,
my Brother.
And what will the God-man do when He comes,
Brother,
O Brother?
He will better the world or in courts or slums,
He
will do in gladness his nearest duty:
He will teach the religion
of love and beauty
In field or factory, mine or mart,
While
He tells the world of the larger part
And the wider life that is
yet to be
When spirit is free,
Brother,
my Brother.
When spirit is free, then where will it go,
Brother,
O Brother?
Its uttermost summit no man may know,
For it goes
up to God in His holy Tower
To gather more knowledge and force
and power;
Like a ray of the sun it shall shine again
To brighten
new planets and races of men.
Life had no beginning, life has no
end,
Brother and friend -
Brother,
my Brother.
You who are loudly crying out for peace,
You who are wanting
love to vanquish hate,
How is it in the four walls of your home
The
while you wait?
Do those who form your household welcome your approach in the morning
As
the earth welcomes the presence of dawn,
Or do they dread your
coming lest you censure and complain?
Do you begin the day with
praise to God for each blessing you possess, and do you speak frequent
words of commendation to those about you?
Do those you claim to
love often hear you talking in love’s language,
Or is your
softest tone and your sweetest speech saved for the sometime guest,
While
the harsh voice and the sharp retort are used with those you love the
best?
You who are praying for the Christ’s return
And for
the coming of the Promised Day,
How is it in the four walls of
your home
The while you pray?
Are you trying to make your home a reflection of what you believe
heaven will be?
Unless you are you will never find heaven anywhere;
The
foundations of our heavenly mansions must first be built on earth.
Unless
you are striving to put in use some of the angelic virtues here and
now,
No angelhood will be accorded you hereafter.
Unless you are illustrating your desire for peace by a peaceful,
love-ruled home,
You have no right to clamour for a cessation of
hostilities among nations;
Nations are only chains of individuals.
When
each individual expresses nothing but love and peace in his daily life,
there will be no more war.
You who are loudly crying out for peace,
You who are wanting
love to vanquish hate,
How is it in the four walls of your home
The
while you wait?
For the courage which comes when we call,
While troubles like
hailstones fall;
For the help that is somehow nigh,
In the
deepest night when we cry;
For the path that is certainly shown
When
we pray in the dark alone,
Let us give thanks.
For the knowledge we gain if we wait
And bear all the buffets
of fate;
For the vision that beautifies sight
If we look under
wrong for the right;
For the gleam of the ultimate goal
That
shines on each reverent soul:
Let us give thanks.
For the consciousness stirring in creeds
That love is the thing
the world needs;
For the cry of the travailing earth
That
is giving a new faith birth;
For the God we are learning to find
In
the heart and the soul and the mind:
Let us give
thanks.
For the growth of the spirit through pain,
Like a plant in the
soil and the rain;
For the dropping of needless things
Which
the sword of a sorrow brings;
For the meaning and purpose of life
Which
dawns on us out of the strife:
Let us give thanks.
For the solace that comes to our grief
In knowing earth’s
season is brief;
For the certitude given by faith
Of the continents
out beyond death;
For the glorious thought that each day
Is
speeding us the reward away:
Let us give thanks.
‘Black sheep, black sheep, have you any wool?’
Yes,
sir - yes, sir: three bags full.’
‘I don’t want any New Thought,’ said he,
‘Or
any Theosophy, for, you see,
The faith I learned at my mother’s
knee
Is good enough for me.
Of course, I’m a wee bit
broader than she,
Hearing one sermon where she heard three,
And
I read my paper on Sunday, instead
Of the Bible only. My
mother said
I was a black sheep, when she saw
I strayed a
trifle away from the law,
And didn’t think every one left
in the lurch
Who happened to go to a different church;
But,
still, in the main, her creed is mine,
And I don’t want anything
more divine.’
Yet his mother’s mother was more austere;
She
taught her children a creed of fear,
And she called them ‘black
sheep’ when, with a shock,
She saw them straying away from
the flock,
Just far enough
To get around places they thought
too rough,
Like infant damnation and endless hell.
But his mother’s mother’s mother would tell
How
her mother thought it was God’s sweet will
To punish and
torture a heretic till
They drove out the devil that made him dare
Think
for himself in the matter of prayer
And faith and salvation.
So we see how it is
If we look back over the centuries -
The
creeds men learned at their mother’s knee
When Salem witches
were hanged to a tree,
And the pious dames flocked thither to see,
Are
not deemed Christian or holy to-day;
And the bold black sheep who
went straying away
From rut-worn paths in their search for God,
And
leaped over the fence into pastures broad,
Are the great trail-makers
for mortal souls,
Leading the race up to higher goals
And
a larger religion; where man must find
God dwelling ever within
his mind,
Christ in his conduct, and heaven in his thought,
And
hell but the places where love is not.
A mighty religion that makes
this earth
But the cradle that fits us for death’s new birth
And
the life beyond it, that is so near
Its echoes may reach to the
listening ear.
‘Black sheep, black sheep, have you any wool?’
‘Yes,
sir - yes, sir: a whole world full.’
Little by little and one by one,
Out of the
ether, were worlds created;
Star and planet and sea and sun,
All
in the nebulous Nothing waited
Till the Nameless One Who has many
a name
Called them to being and forth they came.
All things mighty and all things small,
Stone
and flower and sentient being,
Each is an answer to that one call,
A
part of Himself that His will is freeing -
Freeing to go on the
long, long way
That winds back home at the end of the day.
Little by little does mortal man
Build his
castles for joy and glory,
And one by one time shatters each plan
And
lowers his palaces, story by story-
Story by story, till earth
is just
A row of graves in the lowly dust.
One by one, whatever was called,
Must be called
back to the primal Centre.
Let no soul tremble or be appalled,
For
the heart of the Maker is where we enter -
Is where we enter to
gain new force
Before we are sent on another course.
And one by one, as He calls us back,
We shall
find the souls that we loved with passion,
In the great way-stations
along the track,
And clasp them again in the
old, sweet fashion -
In the old, sweet fashion when earth we trod
-
And journey along with them up to God.
Lord, let us pray.
Give us the open mind, O God,
The mind that
dares believe
In paths of thought as yet untrod;
The
mind that can conceive
Large visions of a wider way
Than circumscribes
our world to-day.
May tolerance temper our own faith,
However
great our zeal;
When others speak of life and death,
Let
us not plunge a steel
Into the heart of one who talks
In terms
we deem unorthodox.
Help us to send our thoughts through space,
Where
worlds in trillions roll,
Each fashioned for its time and place,
Each
portion of the whole;
Till our weak minds may feel a sense
Of
Thy Supreme Omnipotence.
Let us not shame Thee with a creed
That builds
a costly church,
But blinds us to a brother’s need
Because
he dares to search
For truth in his own soul and heart
And
finds his church in home and mart.
Give us the faith that makes us kind,
Give us the open sight
and mind -
O God, the often mind
That lifts
itself to meet the Ray
Of the New Dawning Day:
Lord,
let us pray.
Be not dismayed, be not dismayed when death
Sets its white seal
upon some worshipped face.
Poor human nature for a little space
Must
suffer anguish, when that last drawn breath
Leaves such long silence;
but let not thy faith
Fail for a moment in God’s
boundless grace.
But know, oh know, He has prepared
a place
Fairer for our dear dead than worlds beneath,
Yet
not beneath; for those entrancing spheres
Surround
our earth as seas a barren isle.
Ours is the region of eternal
fears;
Theirs is the region where God’s
radiant smile
Shines outward from the centre, and gives hope
Even
to those who in the shadows grope.
They are not far from us.
At first though long
And lone may seem the paths
that intervene,
If ever on the staff of prayer
we lean
The silence will grow eloquent with song
And our weak
faith with certitude wax strong.
Intense, yet
tranquil; fervent, yet serene,
He must be who
would contact World Unseen
And comrade with their Amaranthine throng;
Not
through the tossing waves of surging grief
Come
spirit-ships to port. When storms subside,
Then with their
precious cargoes of relief
Into the harbour of
the heart they glide.
For him who will believe and trust and wait
Death’s
austere silence grows articulate.
I have been down in the darkest water -
Deep,
deep down where no light could pierce;
Alone with the things that
are bent on slaughter,
The mindless things that
are cruel and fierce.
I have fought with fear in my wave-walled
prison,
And begged for the beautiful boon of
death;
But out of the billows my soul has risen
To
glorify God with my latest breath.
There is no potion I have not tasted
Of all
the bitters in life’s large store;
And never a drop of the
gall was wasted
That the lords of Karma saw fit
to pour,
Though I cried as my Elder Brother before me,
‘Father
in heaven, let pass this cup!’
And the only response from
the still skies o’er me
Was the brew held
close for my lips to sup.
Yet I have grown strong on the gall Elysian,
And
a courage has come that all things dares;
And I have been given
an inner vision
Of the wonderful world where
my dear one fares;
And I have had word from the great Hereafter
-
A marvellous message that throbs with truth,
And
mournful weeping has changed to laughter,
And
grief has changed into the joy of youth.
Oh! there was a time when I supped sweet potions,
And
lightly uttered profound belief,
Before I went down in the swirling
oceans
And fought with madness and doubt and
grief.
Now I am climbing the Hills of Knowledge,
And
I speak unfearing, and say ‘I know,’
Though it be not
to church, or to book, or college,
But to God
Himself that my debt I owe.
For the ceaseless prayer of a soul is heeded,
When
the prayer asks only for light and faith;
And the faith and the
light and the knowledge needed
Shall gild with
glory the path to death.
Oh! heart of the world by sorrow shaken,
Hear
ye the message I have to give:
The seal from the lips of the dead
is taken,
And they can say to you, ‘Lo!
we live.’
There are not many sins when once we sift them.
In actions of
evolving human souls
Striving to reach high goals
And falling
backward into dust and mire,
Some element we find that seems to
lift them
Above our condemnation - even higher
Into the realm
of pity and compassion.
So beauteous a thing as love itself can
fashion
A chain of sins; descending to desire,
It wanders
into dangerous paths, and leads
To most unholy deeds,
And
light-struck, walks in madness toward the night.
Wrong oft-times is an over-ripened right,
A rank weed grown
from some neglected flower,
The lightning uncontrolled: flames
meant for joy
And beauty, used to ravage and destroy.
For
sins like these repentance can atone.
There is one sin alone
Which
seems all unforgivable, because
It springs from no temptation and
no need
And no desire, save to make sweet faith bleed,
And
to defame God’s laws.
Oh! viler than the murderer or the
thief
Who slays the body and who robs the purse,
Is he who
strives to kill the mind’s belief
And rob it of its hope
Of
life beyond this little pain-filled span.
God has no curse
Quite
dark enough to punish such a man,
Who, seeing how souls grope
And
suffer in this world of mighty losses,
And how hearts stagger on
beneath life’s crosses,
Yet strives to rob them of their
staff of faith
And make them think dark death
Ends all existence;
think the worshipped child
Cold in its mother’s arms is but
a clod
And has not gone to God;
That souls united by love
undefiled
And holy can by death be torn asunder
To meet no
more.
It must be true that under
This earth of ours there
lies a Purgatory
For those who seek to rob grief of the glory
That
shines through hope of life immortal. In
Sin’s lexicon
this is the vilest sin -
Needless and cruel, ugly, gaunt and mean,
Without
one poor excuse on which to lean,
A vandal sin, that with no hope
of gain
Finds pleasure only in another’s pain.
God! though all other sins on earth persist,
Strike dumb the
blatant, loud-mouthed atheist.
In the face of the sun are great thunderbolts hurled,
And
the storm-clouds have shut out its light;
But a Rainbow of Promise
now shines on the world,
And the universe thrills
at the sight.
’Tis the flag of our Union, the red, white, and blue,
Our
Star-spangled Banner - our pride;
Fair symbol of all that is noble
and true,
Flung out over continents wide.
Flung out in its glory o’er land and o’er sea,
With
a message from God in each star;
And a glorious promise of peace
yet to be
In the fluttering folds of each bar.
A Rainbow of Promise, bright emblem of hope,
Fair
flag of each cause that is just;
No longer in doubt or in darkness
we grope -
In the Star-spangled Banner we trust.
Whatever the strength of our foes is now,
Whatever
it may have been,
This is our slogan, and this our vow -
They
shall not win, they shall not win.
Though out of the darkness they call the aid
Of
the evil forces of Sin,
We utter our slogan unafraid -
They
shall not win, they shall not win.
We know we are right, and know they are wrong,
So
to God above and within -
We make our vow and we sing our song
They
shall not win, they shall not win.
It rises over the shriek of shell,
And over
the cannons’ din:
Our slogan shall scatter the hosts of Hell
-
They shall not win, they shall not win.
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