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 ign.o.ble life. G.o.d 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!
THE HOUR
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 G.o.d 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; G.o.d 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.
THE MESSAGE
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 s.p.a.ce.
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 s.p.a.ce has a message compelling To give to the ear of Earth; And the things which the Silence is telling In the bosom of G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d"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 aeons and aeons, his story Is b.l.o.o.d.y 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 G.o.d.
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"
DECORATION POEM FOR SOLDIERS" GRAVES, TOURS, FRANCE, MAY 30, 1918
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 G.o.d"s purpose thrives In all this holocaust of human lives.
I say G.o.d"s purpose thrives. Just in the measure That men have flung away their l.u.s.t for gain, Stopped in their mad pursuit of worldly pleasure, And boldly faced unprecedented pain And dangers, without thinking of the cost, So thrives G.o.d"s purpose in the holocaust.
Death is a little thing: all men must die; But when ideals die, G.o.d 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 G.o.d!
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 cla.s.ses.
But when this savage carnage finds surcease A new ideal will unite the ma.s.ses.
And there shall be True Brotherhood with men - The Christly Spirit stirring earth again.
For this our men have suffered, fought, and died.