Looking from His place, looking from His high place among the stars, G.o.d 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 G.o.d said, speaking unto Himself aloud, G.o.d 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."
G.o.d 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 sh.e.l.ls; 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 G.o.d hid His grieving face behind a wall of cloud, On earth they said, "A thunder-storm"--but G.o.d had wept aloud.
IT MAY BE
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 h.o.a.rding 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...o...b..t 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 s.p.a.ces.
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.
Cla.s.ses with cla.s.ses 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 G.o.dward 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.
THEN AND NOW
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 G.o.ddess 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 trespa.s.sed 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 gla.s.ses; You "cut in" at their games of bridge; you left Your work to drop in on their dancing cla.s.ses 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.
G.o.d! 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.
WIDOWS
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 a.s.suage its grief.
Some surcease and relief From sorrow, in pursuit of mortal joys.
It drowned G.o.d"s stillness in a sea of noise; It lost G.o.d"s presence in a blur of forms; Till, bruised and bleeding with life"s brutal storms, Unto immutable and speechless s.p.a.ce 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, h.e.l.l bent on slaughter, All these plough paths for widows. Maids at dawn, And brides at noon, ere eventide pa.s.s on Into the ranks of widows: but to weep Just for a little s.p.a.ce; 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 crepe 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 b.u.t.terflies, 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 G.o.d 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."
G.o.d"s alchemist, old Time, will merge to calm That bitter anguish; but there is no balm Save the sweet cert.i.tude 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.
CONVERSATION
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 cha.s.se, glide, and whirl As lovers dwell upon the charms of some fair girl.)