Dear, when we part, at last, that sunset sky Shall not be touched with deeper hues than this; But we shall ride the lightning ere we die And seize our brief infinitude of bliss,
With time to spare for all that heaven can tell, While eyes meet eyes, and look their last farewell.
THE MATIN-SONG OF FRIAR TUCK
I.
If souls could sing to heaven"s high King As blackbirds pipe on earth, How those delicious courts would ring With gusts of lovely mirth!
What white-robed throng could lift a song So mellow with righteous glee As this brown bird that all day long Delights my hawthorn tree.
Hark! That"s the thrush With speckled breast From yon white bush Chaunting his best, _Te Deum! Te Deum laudamus!_
II.
If earthly dreams be touched with gleams Of Paradisal air, Some wings, perchance, of earth may glance Around our slumbers there; Some breaths of may might drift our way With scents of leaf and loam, Some whistling bird at dawn be heard From those old woods of home.
Hark! That"s the thrush With speckled breast From yon white bush Chaunting his best, _Te Deum! Te Deum laudamus!_
III.
No King or priest shall mar my feast Where"er my soul may range.
I have no fear of heaven"s good cheer Unless our Master change.
But when death"s night is dying away, If I might choose my bliss, My love should say, at break of day, With her first waking kiss:- Hark! That"s the thrush With speckled breast, From yon white bush Chaunting his best, _Te Deum! Te Deum laudamus!_
FIVE CRITICISMS
I.
(_On many recent novels by the conventional unconventionalists_.)
Old Pantaloon, lean-witted, dour and rich, After grim years of soul-destroying greed, Weds Columbine, that April-blooded witch "Too young" to know that gold was not her need.
Then enters Pierrot, young, rebellious, warm, With well-lined purse, to teach the fine-souled wife That the old fool"s gold should aid a world-reform (Confused with s.e.x). This wrecks the old fool"s life.
O, there"s no doubt that Pierrot was clever, Quick to break hearts and quench the dying flame; But why, for his own pride, does Pierrot never Choose his own mate, work for his own high aim,
Stand on his feet, and pay for his own tune?
Why scold, cheat, rob and kill poor Pantaloon?
II.
(_On a certain G.o.ddess, acclaimed as "new" but known in Babylon._)
I saw the a.s.sembled artists of our day Waiting for light, for music and for song.
A woman stood before them, fresh as May And beautiful; but, in that modish throng,
None heeded her. They said, "In our first youth Surely, long since, your hair was touched with grey."
"I do not change," she answered. "I am Truth."
"Old and ba.n.a.l," they sneered, and turned away.
Then came a formless thing, with b.r.e.a.s.t.s dyed scarlet.
The roses in her hair were green and blue.
"I am new," she said. "I change, and Death knows why."
Then with the eyes and gesture of a harlot She led them all forth, whinneying, "New, how new!
Tell us your name!" She answered, "The New Lie."
III.
(_On Certain of the Bolsheviki "Idealists."_)
With half the force and thought you waste in rage Over your neighbor"s house, or heart of stone, You might have built your own new heritage, O fools, have you no hands, then, of your own?
Where is your pride? Is this your answer still, This the red flag that burns above our strife, This the new cry that rings from Pisgah hill, "_Our neighbor"s money, or our neighbor"s life_"?
Be prouder. Let us build that n.o.bler state With our own hands, with our own muscle and brain!
Your very victories die in hymns of hate; And your own envies are your heaviest chain.
Is there no rebel proud enough to say "We"ll stand on our own feet, and win the day"?
IV.
(_On Certain Realists._)
You with the quick sardonic eye For all the mockeries of life, Beware, in this dark masque of things that seem, Lest even that tragic irony, Which you discern in this our mortal strife, Trick you and trap you, also, with a dream.
Last night I saw a dead man borne along The city streets, pa.s.sing a boisterous throng That never ceased to laugh and shout and dance: And yet, and yet, For all the poison bitter minds might brew From themes like this, I knew That the stern Truth would not permit her glance Thus to be foiled by flying straws of chance, For her keen eyes on deeper skies are set, And laws that tragic ironists forget.
She saw the dead man"s life, from birth to death,-- All that he knew of love and sin and pain, Success and failure (not as this world sees), His doubts, his pa.s.sions, inner loss and gain, And borne on darker tides of constant law Beyond the margin of this life she saw All that had left his body with the breath.
These things, to her, were still realities.
If any mourned for him unseen, She saw them, too.
If none, she"d not pretend His clay were colder, or his G.o.d less true, Or that his grave, at length, would be less green.
She"d not deny The boundless depths of her eternal sky Brooding above a boundless universe, Because he seemed to man"s unseeing eye Going a little further to fare worse; Nor would she a.s.sume he lacked that unseen friend Whom even the tragic ironists declare Were better than the seen, in his last end.
Oh, then, beware, beware, Lest in the strong name of "reality"
You mock yourselves anew with shapes of air, Lest it be you, agnostics, who re-write The fettering creeds of night, Affirm you know your own Unknowable, And lock the winged soul in a new h.e.l.l; Lest it be you, lip-worshippers of Truth, Who break the heart of youth; Lest it be you, the realists, who fight With shadows, and forget your own pure light; Lest it be you who, with a little shroud s.n.a.t.c.hed from the sightless faces of the dead, Hoodwink the world, and keep the mourner bowed In dust, real dust, with stones, real stones, for bread; Lest, as you look one eighth of an inch beneath The yellow skin of death, You dream yourselves discoverers of the skull That old _memento mori_ of our faith; Lest it be you who hunt a flying wraith Through this dissolving stuff of hill and cloud; Lest it be you, who, at the last, annul Your covenant with your kind; Lest it be you who darken heart and mind, Sell the strong soul in bondage to a dream, And fetter us once more to things that seem.