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diff --git a/old/helb10.txt b/old/helb10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ce6433d --- /dev/null +++ b/old/helb10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2819 @@ +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 + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, HELLO, BOYS! *** + + + + +Transcribed from the 1919 Gay and Hancock edition by David Price, +email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk + + + + +HELLO, BOYS! + + + + +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 + + + +FORWARD + + + +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 + + + +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. + + + +THE BRAVE HIGHLAND LADDIES + + + +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! + + + +MEN OF THE SEA + + + +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. + + + +ODE TO THE BRITISH FLEET + + + +'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. + + + +THE GERMAN FLEET + + + +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. + + + +DEEP UNTO DEEP WAS CALLING + + + +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. + + + +THE SONG OF THE ALLIES + + + +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! + + + +TEN THOUSAND MEN A DAY + + + +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' +WOODROW WILSON + + + +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. + + + +WAR + + + +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! + + + +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 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. + + + +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 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 aeons and aeons, 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' +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 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 cortege 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. + + + +OUR ATLAS + + + +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. + + + +CAMP FOLLOWERS + + + +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. + + + +COME BACK CLEAN + + + +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 + + + +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! + + + +THE AWAKENING + + + +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.' + + + +THE KHAKI BOYS WHO WERE NOT AT THE FRONT + + + +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. + + + +TIME'S HYMN OF HATE + + + +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! + + + +DEAR MOTHERLAND OF FRANCE +DEDICATED TO THE MEN AND WOMEN OF FRANCE + + + +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. + + + +THE SPIRIT OF GREAT JOAN + + + +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. + + + +SPEAK + + + +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 Domremy +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. + + + +THE GIRL OF THE U.S.A. + + + +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. + + + +PASSING THE BUCK + + + +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. + + + +SONG OF THE AVIATOR + + + +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. + + + +THE STEVEDORES + + + +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! + + + +A SONG OF HOME + + + +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. + + + +THE SWAN OF DIJON + + + +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 + + + +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 + + + +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 role 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. + + + +AMERICAN BOYS, HELLO! + + + +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!' + + + +DE ROCHAMBEAU + + + +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. + + + +AFTER + + + +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. + + + +THE BLASPHEMY OF GUNS + + + +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.) + + + +THE CRIMES OF PEACE + + + +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. + + + +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 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. + + + +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 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. + + + +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 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 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 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. + + + +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 chasse, 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, TOO + + + +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 EARS + + + +'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.' + + + +ANSWERS + + + +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. + + + +HOW IS IT? + + + +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? + + + +'LET US GIVE THANKS' + + + +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. + + + +THE BLACK SHEEP + + + + +'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.' + + + +ONE BY ONE + + + +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. + + + +PRAYER + + + +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, 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. + + + +ASCENSION + + + +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.' + + + +THE DEADLIEST SIN + + + + +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. + + + +THE RAINBOW OF PROMISE + + + +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. + + + +THEY SHALL NOT WIN + + + +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. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, HELLO, BOYS! *** + +This file should be named helb10.txt or helb10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, helb11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, helb10a.txt + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END* + diff --git a/old/helb10.zip b/old/helb10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b13f5a9 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/helb10.zip diff --git a/old/helb10h.htm b/old/helb10h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b7b1b6b --- /dev/null +++ b/old/helb10h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1876 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Hello, Boys!</title> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">Hello, Boys!, by Ella Wheeler Wilcox</a> +</h2> +<pre> +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 +</pre> +<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p> +<p>Transcribed from the 1919 Gay and Hancock edition by David Price, +email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<h1>HELLO, BOYS!</h1> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<p>Contents:<br /> Forward<br /> Thanksgiving<br /> The +Brave Highland Laddies<br /> Men of the Sea<br /> Ode +to the British Fleet<br /> The German Fleet<br /> Deep +unto deep was calling<br /> The Song of the Allies<br /> Ten +thousand men a day<br /> “America will not turn +back”<br /> War<br /> The Hour<br /> The +Message<br /> “Flowers of France”<br /> Our +Atlas<br /> Camp Followers<br /> Come +Back Clean<br /> Camouflage<br /> The +Awakening<br /> The Khaki Boys who were not at the +Front<br /> Time’s Hymn of Hate<br /> Dear +Motherland of France<br /> The Spirit of Great Joan<br /> Speak<br /> The +Girl of the U.S.A.<br /> Passing the Buck<br /> Song +of the Aviator<br /> The Stevedores<br /> A +Song of Home<br /> The Swan of Dijon<br /> Veils<br /> In +France I saw a Hill<br /> American Boys, Hello!<br /> De +Rochambeau<br /> After<br /> The Blasphemy +of Guns<br /> The Crimes of Peace<br /> It +May Be<br /> Then and Now<br /> Widows<br /> Conversation<br /> I, +too<br /> He that hath ears<br /> Answers<br /> How +is it?<br /> ‘Let us give thanks’<br /> The +Black Sheep<br /> One by one<br /> Prayer<br /> Be +not Dismayed<br /> Ascension<br /> The +Deadliest Sin<br /> The Rainbow of Promise<br /> They +shall not win</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Forward</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Ella Wheeler Wilcox<br />London,<br /><i>October</i> 1918.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>THANKSGIVING</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Thanksgiving for the strong armed day,<br />That lifted war’s +red curse,<br />When Peace, that lordly little word,<br />Was uttered +in a voice that stirred -<br />Yea, shook the Universe.</p> +<p>Thanksgiving for the Mighty Hour<br />That brimmed the Victor’s +cup,<br />When England signalled to the foe,<br />‘The German +flag must be brought low<br />And not again hauled up!’</p> +<p>Thanksgiving for the sea and air<br />Free from the Devil’s +might!<br />Thanksgiving that the human race<br />Can lift once more +a rev’rent face,<br />And say, ‘God helps the Right.’</p> +<p>Thanksgiving for our men who came<br />In Heaven-protected ships,<br />The +waning tide of hope to swell,<br />With ‘Lusitania’ and +‘Cavell’<br />As watchwords on their lips.</p> +<p>Thanksgiving that our splendid dead,<br />All radiant with youth,<br />Dwell +near to us - there is no death.<br />Thanksgiving for the broad new +faith<br />That helps us know this truth.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>THE BRAVE HIGHLAND LADDIES</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>I had seen our splendid soldiers in their khaki uniforms,<br /> And +their leaders with a Sam Brown belt;<br />I had seen the fighting Britons +and Colonials in swarms,<br /> I had seen the blue-clad +Frenchmen, and I felt<br />That the mighty martial show<br />Had no +new sight to bestow,<br /> Till I walked on Piccadilly, +and my word!<br />By the bonnie Highland laddies<br />In their kilts +and their plaidies,<br /> To a wholly new sensation +I was stirred.</p> +<p>They were like some old-time picture, or a scene from out a play,<br /> They +were stalwart, they were young, and debonnair;<br />Their jaunty little +caps they wore in such a fetching way,<br /> And they +showed their handsome legs, and didn’t care -<br />And they seemed +to own the town<br />As they strode on up and down -<br /> Oh, +they surely were a sight for tired eyes!<br />Those braw, bonnie laddies<br />In +their kilts and their plaidies,<br /> And I stared +at them with pleasure and surprise.</p> +<p>I had read about the valour of old Scotland’s warrior sons +-<br /> How they fought to a finish, or else fell;<br />I +had heard the name bestowed on them by agitated Huns,<br /> Who +called these skirted soldiers ‘Dames of Hell’;<br />And +I gave them right of way<br />On their London holiday,<br /> As +I met them swinging down the street and Strand,<br />Those bonnie, bonnie +laddies<br />In their kilts and their plaidies,<br /> And +I breathed a blessing on them and their land</p> +<p>Now the world is all rejoicing that the end of war has come -<br /> And +no heart is any gladder than my own,<br />That the brutal, blatant voices +of the guns at last are dumb,<br /> And the Dove of +Peace from out her cage has flown.<br />Yet, when men no more march +by,<br />Making pictures for the eye,<br /> There’s +a vital dash of colour earth will lack,<br />When the brave Highland +laddies<br />Drop their kilts and their plaidies,<br /> And +return to common clothes of grey or black!</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>MEN OF THE SEA</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p><i>Many the songs of the brave boys sent<br />Over The Top in the +battle’s thunder;<br />But mine is the song of the men who went<br />Over +the top of the waves - and under.</i></p> +<p>Men of the sea, Men of the sea,<br />I lift mine eyes to the Flags +unfurled -<br />The Flags of Victory blowing free<br />Over the new-born +world.<br />And I cry ‘Thank God! these things can be!<br />Thank +God, and the Men of the Sea!’</p> +<p>Little it matters to what they belong,<br />Marine or Navy - or Merchant +Ship -<br />To the Men of the Sea I sing my song;<br />A song that rises +from heart to lip.</p> +<p>I sing of the valour that ploughed a path<br />Straight through the +snares of a crafty foe,<br />Through billows raging with wintry wrath,<br />And +over the dens of the devils below.</p> +<p>To the splendid heroes of Jutland Bank<br />And the Royal Navy I +give their due;<br />And cheek by jowl with them all, I rank<br />The +brave mine-sweepers and merchant crew.</p> +<p>Trawler - Drifter - or English Fleet -<br />All are manned by the +Men of the Sea,<br />And all together in my heart meet,<br />For a boat +is a boat to the mind of me.</p> +<p>And who ever over the dread seas fared,<br />And however humble his +work or place,<br />To the great Christ spirit must be compared -<br />Since +he offered his life for the good of the race.</p> +<p>And how many lie in the deep-sea bed,<br />No man can reckon, and +no man number;<br />But not one Soul of them all is dead,<br />For death +is only the body’s slumber.</p> +<p>And the Men of the Mist, who from dark to dawn<br />On the deck or +the bridge stand guard at night,<br />Oft feel the presence of comrades +gone<br />Who keep watch with them, though veiled from sight.</p> +<p><i>Many the songs of the brave boys sent<br />Over The Top in the +battle’s thunder;<br />But mine is the song of the men who went<br />Over +the top of the waves - and under.</i></p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>ODE TO THE BRITISH FLEET</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>‘Invisible and silent’ - Mystery<br />Surrounded that +great Guardian of the Sea.<br />That Father - Mother - of the mighty +main.<br />While loud in valley and on field and hill -<br />And over +anguished plain<br />The battles thundered. God himself is still<br />And +hidden from men’s view; and it were meet<br />That this subliminal +force<br />Should move in utter silence on its course<br />Invisible +- Inaudible - till that hour<br />When Time, Fate’s Minister, +should speak and say -<br />‘Come forth! and show thy power!’<br />When +Time commands, even the gods obey.</p> +<p>‘Invisible and silent’; yet the foe<br />Was driven from +the Sea. All impotent<br />The brazen braggart went.<br />While +commerce sent her brave ships to and fro;<br />And from Columbia’s +shores there sailed away<br />Ten thousand men a day -<br />Ten thousand +men a day! who reached their goals<br />Bringing new courage to war-weary +souls.</p> +<p>Oh, silent wonder of the noisy sea!<br />Though alien, with the blood +of Bunker Hill<br />Down filtering through my veins, the heart of me<br />Seems +with a mingled love and awe to fill<br />And overflow at thought of +that sublime,<br />Unparalleled large hour of Time;<br />When bloodless +Victory saw the foes’ flag furled -<br />That insolent menace +to a righteous world.</p> +<p>Great Britain’s Fleet unshaken in its might,<br />Proclaimed +itself again in all men’s sight<br />The Mistress of the Main. +Fair Freedom’s friend,<br />May peace and glory on thy path attend.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>THE GERMAN FLEET</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Lie down, and let the billows hide your shame,<br />Oh, shorn and +naked outcast of the seas!<br />You who confided to each ocean breeze<br />Your +coming conquests, and made loud acclaim<br />Of your own grandeur and +exalted fame;<br />You who have catered to they world’s disease;<br />You +who have drunk hate’s wine, and found the lees;<br />Lie down! +and let all men forget your name!</p> +<p>You dreamed of world dominion! you! the spawn<br />Of hell and hatred +- Foe to all things free -<br />Sworn enemy to honour, truth and right;<br />Too +poor a thing now for the Devil’s pawn,<br />Let the large mercy +of the outraged sea<br />Engulf and hide you evermore from sight.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>DEEP UNTO DEEP WAS CALLING</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>They rode through the bannered city -<br />The King and the Commoner,<br />And +the hopes of the world were with them,<br />And the heart of the world +was astir.<br />For the moss-grown walls seemed falling<br />That have +shut away men from Kings;<br />And Deep unto Deep was calling<br />For +the coming of greater things.</p> +<p>They rode to an age-old Palace<br />Where the feet of the Mighty +go -<br />(A Palace that stands unshaken<br />Despite the boast of the +foe!)<br />And the King from Kings descending -<br />And the Man of +the People’s choice<br />In a Super-Man seemed blending,<br />And +they spoke as with one voice.</p> +<p>And one voice now and for ever<br />Will speak from sea to sea,<br />Wherever +the British Banner<br />And the Starry Flag float free.<br />For our +fettering chains are sundered<br />By the evil that turned to good,<br />And +Deep unto Deep has thundered<br />Its message of Brotherhood.</p> +<p>It was not a pageant of Victors -<br />Or a triumph hour of man,<br />That +ride through the bannered City,<br />It was part of a Mighty Plan;<br />And +the sound of old barriers falling<br />Rose there where those Rulers +trod,<br />For Deep unto Deep was calling<br />In the resonant Voice +of God.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>THE SONG OF THE ALLIES</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>We are the Allies of God to-day,<br />And the width of the earth +is our right of way.<br />Let no man question or ask us why,<br />As +we speed to answer a wild world cry;<br />Let no man hinder or ask us +where,<br />As out over water and land we fare;<br />For whether we +hurry, or whether we wait,<br />We follow the finger of guiding fate.</p> +<p>We are the Allies. We differ in faith,<br />But are one in +our courage at thought of death.<br />Many and varied the tongues we +speak,<br />But one and the same is the goal we seek.<br />And the goal +we seek is not power or place,<br />But the peace of the world, and +the good of the race.<br />And little matters the colour of skin,<br />When +each heart under it beats to win.</p> +<p>We are the Allies; we fight or fly,<br />We wallow in trenches like +pigs in a sty,<br />We dive under water to foil a foe,<br />We wait +in quarters, or rise and go.<br />And staying or going, or near or far,<br />One +thought is ever our guiding star:<br />We are the Allies of God to-day,<br />We +are the Allies - make way! make way!</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>TEN THOUSAND MEN A DAY</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>All the world was wearying,<br /> All the world +was sad;<br />Everything was shadow-filled;<br /> Things +were going bad.<br />Then a rumour stirred all hearts<br /> As +a wind stirs trees -<br />Ten thousand men a day<br /> Coming +over seas!</p> +<p>Soon we saw them marching by -<br /> God! what a +sight! -<br />Shoulders back, and heads erect,<br /> Faces +full of light.<br />Smiling like a morn in May,<br /> Moving +like a breeze,<br />Ten thousand men a day<br /> Coming +over seas.</p> +<p>Weary soldiers worn with war<br /> Lifted up their +eyes,<br />Shadows seemed to fade a bit,<br /> Dawn +was in the skies.<br />Hope sprang to troubled hearts,<br /> Strength +to tired knees:<br />Ten thousand men a day<br /> Were +coming over seas.</p> +<p>France and England swarmed with them,<br /> Khaki-clad +and young,<br />Filled with all the joy of life -<br /> Into +line they swung.<br />Waning valour rose anew<br /> At +the sight of these<br />Ten thousand men a day<br /> Coming +over seas.</p> +<p>Still they come - and still they come<br /> In their +strength and pride.<br />Victory with radiant mien<br /> Marches +on beside.<br />Victory is here to stay,<br /> Every +heart agrees,<br />With ten thousand men a day<br /> Coming +over seas.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>‘AMERICA WILL NOT TURN BACK’<br />WOODROW WILSON</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>America will not turn back;<br /> She did not idly +start,<br />But weighed full carefully and well<br /> Her +grave, important part.<br />She chose the part of Freedom’s friend,<br />And +will pursue it, to the end.</p> +<p>Great Liberty, who guards her gates,<br /> Will +shine upon her course,<br />And light the long, adventurous path<br /> With +radiance from God’s Source.<br />And though blood dye that ocean +track,<br />America will not turn back.</p> +<p>She will not turn until that hour<br /> When thunders +through the world<br />The crash of tyrant monarchies<br /> By +Freedom’s hand down-hurled.<br />While Labour’s voice from +sea to sea<br />Sings loud, ‘My country, ’tis of thee.’</p> +<p>Then will our fair Columbia turn,<br /> While all +wars’ clamours cease,<br />And with our banner lifted high<br /> Proclaim, +‘Let there be Peace.’<br />But till that glorious day shall +dawn<br />She will march on, she will march on.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>WAR</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>I</p> +<p>There is no picturesqueness and no glory,<br /> No +halo of romance, in war to-day.<br /> It is a hideous +thing; Time would turn grey<br />With horror, were he not already hoary<br />At +sight of this vile monster, foul and gory.<br /> Yet +while sweet women perish as they pray,<br /> And new-born +babes are slaughtered, who dare say<br />‘Halt!’ till Right +pens its ‘Finis’ to the story!<br />There is no pathway, +but the path through blood,<br /> Out of the horrors +of this holocaust.<br />Hell has let loose its scalding crimson flood,<br /> And +he who stops to argue now is lost.<br />Not brooms of creeds, not Pacifistic +words<br />Can stem the tide, but swords - uplifted swords!</p> +<p>II</p> +<p>Yet, after Peace has turned the clean white page<br /> There +shall be sorrow on the earth for years;<br /> Abysmal +grief, that has no eyes for tears,<br />And youth that hobbles through +the earth like age.<br />But better to play this part upon life’s +stage<br /> Than to aid structures that a tyrant rears,<br /> To +live a stalwart hireling torn with fears,<br />And shamed by feeding +on a conqueror s wage.<br />Death, yea, a thousand deaths, were sweet +in truth<br /> Rather than such ignoble life. +God gave<br />Being, and breath, and high resolve to youth<br /> That +it might be Wrong’s master, not its slave.<br />Our road to Freedom +is the road to guns!<br />Go, arm your sons! I say, Go, arm your +sons!</p> +<p>III</p> +<p>Arm! arm! that mandate on each wind is whirled.<br /> Let +no man hesitate or look askance,<br /> For from the +devastated homes of France<br />And ruined Belgium the cry is hurled.<br />Why, +Christ Himself would keep peace banners furled<br /> Were +He among us, till, with lifted lance,<br /> He saw +the hosts of Righteousness advance<br />To purify the Temples of the +world.<br />There is no safety on the earth to-day<br /> For +any sacred thing, or clean, or fair;<br />Nor can there be, until men +rise and slay<br /> The hydra-headed monster in his +lair.<br />War! horrid War! now Virtue’s only friend;<br />Clasp +hands with War, and battle to the end!</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>THE HOUR</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>This is the world’s stupendous hour -<br /> The +supreme moment for the race<br />To see the emptiness of power,<br /> The +worthlessness of wealth and place,<br />To see the purpose and the plan<br />Conceived +by God for growing man.</p> +<p>And they who see and comprehend<br /> That ultimate +and lofty aim<br />Will wait in patience for the end,<br /> Knowing +injustice cannot claim<br />One lasting victory, or control<br />Laws +that bar progress for the whole.</p> +<p>This is an epoch-making time;<br /> God thunders +through the universe<br />A message glorious and sublime,<br /> At +once a blessing and a curse.<br />Blessings for those who seek His light,<br />Curses +for those whose law is might.</p> +<p>Ephemeral as the sunset glow<br /> Is human grandeur. +Mortal life<br />Was given that souls might seek and know<br /> Immortal +truths; and through the strife<br />That shakes the earth from land +to land<br />The wise shall hear and understand.</p> +<p>Out of the awful holocaust,<br /> Out of the whirlwind +and the flood,<br />Out of old creeds to Bedlam tossed,<br /> Shall +rise a new earth washed in blood -<br />A new race filled with spirit +power,<br /><i>This is the world’s stupendous hour.</i></p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>THE MESSAGE</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>I have not the gift of vision,<br /> I have not +the psychic ear,<br />And the realms that are called Elysian<br /> I +neither see nor hear;<br />Yet oft when the shadows darken<br /> And +the daylight hides its face,<br />The soul of me seems to hearken<br /> For +the truths that speak through space.</p> +<p>They speak to me not through reason,<br /> They +speak to me not by word;<br />Yet my soul would be guilty of treason<br /> If +it did not say it had heard.<br />For Space has a message compelling<br /> To +give to the ear of Earth;<br />And the things which the Silence is telling<br /> In +the bosom of God have birth.</p> +<p>Now this is the truth as I hear it -<br /> That +ever through good or ill,<br />The will of the Ruling Spirit<br /> Is +moving and ruling still.<br />In the clutch of the blood-red terror<br /> That +holds the world in its might,<br />The Race is learning its error<br /> And +will find its way to the light.</p> +<p>And this is the Truth as I see it -<br /> Whoever +cries out for peace,<br />Must think it, and live it, and <i>be it,<br /></i> And +the wars of the world will cease.<br />Men fight that man may awaken,<br /> And +no longer want to kill;<br />Wars rage, and the heavens are shaken<br /> That +man may learn how to be still.</p> +<p>In the silence he finds his Saviour -<br /> The +God Who is dwelling within;<br />And only by Christ-behaviour<br /> Is +the soul of him saved from sin.<br />There is only one Source - no other +-<br /> One Light, and each soul is a ray;<br />And +he who would slaughter his brother,<br /><i> Himself</i> +he is seeking to slay.</p> +<p>Now these are the Truths we are learning<br /> Through +evils and horrors untold;<br />For the thought of the race is turning<br /> Away +from its methods of old.<br />And the mind of the race is sated,<br /> With +the things that it prized of yore,<br />And the monster of war is hated,<br /> As +never on earth before.</p> +<p>Oh, slow are God’s mills in the grinding,<br /> But +they grind exceedingly small;<br />And slow is man’s soul in the +finding,<br /> That he is a part of the All.<br />Through +æons and æons, his story<br /> Is bloody +and blackened with crime;<br />But he will come out into glory<br /> And +stand on the summits sublime.</p> +<p>He will stand on the summits of Knowledge,<br /> In +the splendour of Light from the Source;<br />And the methods of church +and of college<br /> Will all of them change by his +force.<br />For the creeds that are blind and cruel,<br /> And +the teachings by rule and by rod,<br />Will all be turned into fuel<br /> To +light up the pathway to God.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>This is the Truth as I hear it -<br /><i>The clouds are rolling away,<br />And +Spirit will talk with Spirit<br />In the swift approaching day.<br />War +from the world shall be driven,<br />From evil shall come forth good;<br />And +men shall make ready for Heaven<br />Through living in Brotherhood.</i></p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>‘FLOWERS OF FRANCE’<br />DECORATION POEM FOR SOLDIERS’ +GRAVES, TOURS, FRANCE, MAY 30, 1918</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p><i>Flowers of France in the Spring,<br />Your growth is a beautiful +thing;<br />But give us your fragrance and bloom -<br />Yea, give us +your lives in truth,<br />Give us your sweetness and grace<br />To brighten +the resting-place<br />Of the flower of manhood and youth,<br />Gone +into the dust of the tomb</i>.</p> +<p>This is the vast stupendous hour of Time,<br />When nothing counts +but sacrifice and faith,<br />Service and self-forgetfulness. +Sublime<br />And awful are these moments charged with death<br />And +red with slaughter. Yet God’s purpose thrives<br />In all +this holocaust of human lives.</p> +<p>I say God’s purpose thrives. Just in the measure<br />That +men have flung away their lust for gain,<br />Stopped in their mad pursuit +of worldly pleasure,<br />And boldly faced unprecedented pain<br />And +dangers, without thinking of the cost,<br />So thrives God’s purpose +in the holocaust.</p> +<p>Death is a little thing: all men must die;<br />But when ideals die, +God grieves in Heaven.<br />Therefore I think it was the reason why<br />This +Armageddon to the world was given.<br />The Soul of man, forgetful of +its birth,<br />Was losing sight of everything but earth.</p> +<p>Up from these many million graves shall spring,<br />A shining harvest +for the coming race.<br />An Army of Invisibles shall bring<br />A glorified +lost faith back to its place.<br />And men shall know there is a higher +goal<br />Than earthly triumphs for the human soul.</p> +<p>They are not dead - they are not dead, I say,<br />These men whose +mortal forms are in the sod.<br />A grand Advance-Guard marching on +its way,<br />Their Souls move upwards to salute their God!<br />While +to their comrades who are in the strife<br />They cry, ‘Fight +on! Death is the dawn of life.’</p> +<p>We had forgotten all the depth and beauty<br />And lofty purport +of that old true word<br />Deplaced by pleasure - that old good word +<i>duty.<br /></i>Now by its meaning is the whole world stirred.<br />These +men died for it; for it, now, we give,<br />And sacrifice, and serve, +and toil, and live.<br />From out our hearts had gone a high devotion<br />For +anything. It took a mighty wrath -<br />Against great evil to +wake strong emotion,<br />And put us back upon the righteous path.<br />It +took a mingled stream of tears and blood<br />To cut the channel through +to Brotherhood.</p> +<p>That word meant nothing on our lips in peace:<br />We had despoiled +it by our castes and classes.<br />But when this savage carnage finds +surcease<br />A new ideal will unite the masses.<br />And there shall +be True Brotherhood with men -<br />The Christly Spirit stirring earth +again.</p> +<p>For this our men have suffered, fought, and died.<br />And we who +can but dimly see the end<br />Are guarded by their spirits glorified,<br />Who +help us on our way, while they ascend.<br />They are not dead - they +are not dead, I say,<br />These men whose graves we decorate to-day.</p> +<p>America and France walk hand in hand;<br />As one, their hearts beat +through the coming years:<br />One is the aim and purpose of each land,<br />Baptized +with holy water of their tears.<br />To-day they worship with one faith, +and know<br />Grief’s first Communion in God’s House of +Woe.</p> +<p>Great Liberty, the Goddess at our gates,<br />And great Jeanne d’Arc, +are fused into one soul:<br />A host of Angels on that soul awaits<br />To +lead it up to triumph at the goal.<br />Along the path of Victory they +tread,<br />Moves the majestic cortège of our dead.</p> +<p><i>Flowers of France in the Spring,<br />Your growth is a beautiful +thing;<br />But give us your fragrance and bloom -<br />Yea, give us +your lives in truth,<br /> Give us your sweetness and +grace<br /> To brighten the resting-place<br /> Of +the flower of manhood and youth,<br /> Gone into the +dust of the tomb.</i></p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>OUR ATLAS</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Not Atlas, with his shoulders bent beneath the weighty world,<br />Bore +such a burden as this man, on whom the Gods have hurled<br />The evils +of old festering lands - yea, hurled them in their might<br />And left +him standing all alone, to set the wrong things right.</p> +<p>It is the way the Fates have done since first Time’s race began!<br />They +open up Pandora’s box before some chosen man;<br />And then, aloof, +they wait and watch, to see if he will find<br />And wake the slumbering +God that dwells in every mortal’s mind.</p> +<p>Erect, our modern Atlas stands, with brave uplifted head,<br />And +there is courage in his eyes, if in his heart be dread.<br />Not dread +of foes, but dread of friends, who may not pull together,<br />To bring +the lurching ship of State safe through the stormy weather.</p> +<p>Oh, never were there wilder waves or more stupendous seas,<br />Or +rougher rocks or bleaker winds, or darker days than these.<br />Not +Washington, not Lincoln knew so grave an hour of Time<br />As he who +now stands face to face with War’s world-shaking crime.</p> +<p>His brain is clear, his soul is brave, his heart is just and right,<br />He +asks no honours of the earth, but favour in God’s sight;<br />His +aim is not to wear a crown or win imperial power,<br />But to use wisely +for the race life’s terrible great hour.</p> +<p>O Liberty, who lights the world with rays that come from God,<br />Shine +on Columbia’s troubled track, and make it bright and broad;<br />Shine +on each heart, and give it strength to meet its pains and losses,<br />And +give supernal strength to one who bears the whole world’s crosses;<br />Take +from his thought the fear of friends who may not pull together,<br />And +bring the glorious ship of State safe through wild waves and weather.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CAMP FOLLOWERS</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>In the old wars of the world there were camp followers,<br />Women +of ancient sins who gave themselves for hire,<br />Women of weak wills +and strong desire.<br />And, like the poison ivy in the woods<br />That +winds itself about tall virile trees<br />Until it smothers them, so +these<br />Ruined the bodies and the souls of men.<br />More evil were +they than Red War itself,<br />Or Pestilence, or Famine. Now in +this war -<br />This last most awful carnage of the world -<br />All +the old wickedness exists as then:</p> +<p>But as a foul stream from a festering fen<br />Is met and scattered +by a mountain brook<br />Leaping along its beautiful, bright course,<br />So +now the force<br />Of these new Followers of the camp has come<br />Straight +from God’s Source<br />To cleanse the world and cleanse the minds +of men.<br />Good women, of great courage and large hearts,<br />Women +whose slogan is self-sacrifice,<br />Willing to pay the price<br />God +asks of pioneers, now play their parts<br />In this stupendous drama +of the age<br />As Followers of the Camps.</p> +<p>They come in the name of God our Father,<br />They come in the name +of Christ our Brother,<br />They come in the name of All Humanity,<br />To +give their gold, their labour, and their love<br />To help the suffering +souls in this war-riddled earth,<br />The New Women of the Race - <br />The +New Camp Followers -<br />The Centuries shall do honour to their names.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>COME BACK CLEAN</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>This is the song for a soldier<br /> To sing as +he rides from home<br />To the fields afar where the battles are<br /> Or +over the ocean’s foam:<br />‘Whatever the dangers waiting<br /> In +the lands I have not seen,<br />If I do not fall - if I come back at +all,<br /> Then I will come back clean.</p> +<p>‘I may lie in the mud of the trenches,<br /> I +may reek with blood and mire,<br />But I will control, by the God in +my soul,<br /> The might of my man’s desire.<br />I +will fight my foe in the open,<br /> But my sword shall +be sharp and keen<br />For the foe within who would lure me to sin,<br /> And +I will come back clean.</p> +<p>‘I may not leave for my children<br /> Brave +medals that I have worn,<br />But the blood in my veins shall leave +no stains<br /> On bride or on babes unborn;<br />And +the scars that my body may carry<br /> Shall not be +from deeds obscene,<br />For my will shall say to the beast, <i>Obey</i>!<br /> And +I will come back clean.</p> +<p>‘Oh, not on the fields of slaughter<br /> And +not in the prison-cell,<br />Or in hunger and cold is the story told<br /> By +war, of its darkest hell.<br />But the old, old sin of the senses<br /> Can +tell what that word may mean<br />To the soldiers’ wives and to +innocent lives,<br /> And I will come back clean.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CAMOUFLAGE</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Camouflage is all the rage.<br />Ladies in their fight with age -<br />Soldiers +in their fight with foes -<br />Demagogues who mask and pose<br />In +the guise of statesmen - girls<br />Black of eyes with golden curls +-<br />Politicians, votes in mind,<br />Smiling, affable and kind,<br />All +use camouflage to-day.<br />As you go upon your way,<br />Walk with +caution, move with care;<br />Camouflage is everywhere!</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>THE AWAKENING</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>I said, ‘I will place my heart, my heart all broken,<br /> Beside +the world’s torn heart, that it may know<br />The comradeship +of sorrow that is not spoken,<br /> But is carried +on wings of all the winds that blow.<br />I will go homeless into homes +of grieving,<br /> And find my own grief easier to +be borne.’<br />So over menacing seas I went, believing<br /> Where +all was mourning, I would cease to mourn.</p> +<p>And now I am here, close to the great world-sorrow,<br /> Here +where each heart some mighty grief has known;<br />But from each suffering +soul I seem to borrow<br /> A poignant pain that but +augments my own.<br />The earth is like one vast tempestuous ocean,<br /> Where +struggling beings fight for light and breath:<br />I feel their anguish, +feel each keen emotion -<br /> Yet through it all, +<i>I know there is no death.</i></p> +<p>And as we toss on billows red with slaughter,<br /> Unto +each tortured, anguished soul I cry,<br />‘There are green lands +beyond this raging water,<br /> We shall come into +harbour by and by.<br />Our dead dwell near, life is a thing eternal:<br /> And +I have talked with One from that fair shore.<br />We are but passing +through a dream infernal;<br /> We shall awake, we +shall be glad once more.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>THE KHAKI BOYS WHO WERE NOT AT THE FRONT</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Oh! it is not just the men who face the guns,<br />Not the fighters +at the Front alone, to-day<br />Who will bring the longed-for close +to the bloody fray, for those<br />Could not carry on that fray without +the ones<br />Who are working at war’s problems far away.</p> +<p>You are <i>all</i> our splendid heroes in the strife,<br />And we +class you with the warriors maimed and scarred,<br />Though you never +have been near enough the battle din to hear,<br />While you laboured +in the dull routine of life<br />In your khaki suits with sleeves that +are not barred.</p> +<p>You have offered up yourselves to save the world;<br />You have felt +the abnegation of the Christ:<br />And whatever work you do is a noble +work and true;<br />Though it be not done with banners all unfurled,<br />You +will find it has, in sight of God, sufficed.</p> +<p>While you carry back no medals when you go,<br />Not without you +had the fighters borne war’s brunt:<br />So just lift your heads +uncowed, for your country will be proud<br />And its lasting love and +honour will bestow<br />On the khaki boys who were not at the Front.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>TIME’S HYMN OF HATE</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p><i>Oh, boastful, wicked land, that once was</i> <i>beautiful and +great,<br />How bitter and how black must be your self-invited fate,<br />While +Time goes down the centuries and sings his hymn of hate</i>!</p> +<p>Time’s voice is just. His words ring true. For +as the past recedes,<br />The clear-eyed Future slowly writes the story +of its deeds;<br />And as Time toward the Infinite his ceaseless flight +is winging<br /> He shall go singing<br />The hymn +of hate, of men and gods, for all your deeds of lust,<br />For all your +acts of cruelty and hell-concocted schemes<br />(More hideous than the +darkest plot of which a devil dreams)<br />Which sprang from your Medusa +head before it touched the dust.</p> +<p>Beneath the strangling hand of Fate<br />That strident voice of yours<br />Shall +hush to silence, soon or late<br />That Justice that endures<br />Will +mobilise its mighty ranks and free the human race,<br /> Then +shall all Space,<br />Yea, all the chains of sphere on sphere,<br />With +that loud hymn be ringing,<br /> Which Time goes singing<br /> His +far flight winging<br />And all the cherubims of God that dwell in regions +o’er us<br /> Shall swell the chorus.</p> +<p><i>Oh, boastful, wicked land, that once was beautiful and great,<br />How +desolate and dark must be your self-invited fate,<br />While Time goes +down the centuries and sings his hymn of hate</i>!</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>DEAR MOTHERLAND OF FRANCE<br />DEDICATED TO THE MEN AND WOMEN OF +FRANCE</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Our Motherland, dear Motherland,<br />The source of beauty and of +Art,<br />Who but thy children understand<br />The love which permeates +each heart!<br />We see, through rainbow-tints of tears,<br />Thy glory +of a thousand years.<br />O country of the Great and Free,<br />We live +for thee, we live for thee,<br />Dear Motherland of France.</p> +<p>O Motherland, both blithe and brave,<br />What magic lies in thy +name - France!<br />Yet can thy radiant mien be grave,<br />And stern +thy ever-smiling glance.<br />And when thy sons and daughters know<br />That +enemies would lay thee low<br />And dim thy fame on land and sea,<br />We +fight for thee, we fight for thee,<br />Dear Motherland of France.</p> +<p>Dear Motherland of joy and mirth,<br />Dear Motherland of faith divine,<br />A +thousand years the wondering earth<br />Has seen thy star in splendour +shine.<br />Still shall it see that star of France<br />Its splendour +and its light enhance.<br />Dear Motherland, when it need be<br />We +die for thee, we die for thee,<br />Dear Motherland of France.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>THE SPIRIT OF GREAT JOAN</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Back of each soldier who fights for France,<br /> Ay, +back of each woman and man<br />Who toils and prays through these long +tense days,<br /> Is the spirit of Great Joan.<br />For +the love she gave, and the life she gave,<br /> In +the eyes of God sufficed<br />To crown her with light, and power, and +might,<br /> That made her second to Christ.</p> +<p>And so in that hour at the Marne she came,<br /> To +the seeing eyes of men;<br />And the blind of view still felt and knew<br /> That +her spirit had come again.<br />And she will come in each crucial hour<br /> And +joy shall follow despair,<br />For Joan sees her France on its knees<br /> And +she hears the voice of its prayer.</p> +<p>There is no hate in the heart of France,<br /> But +a mighty moral force<br />That takes its stand for her worshipped land,<br /> And +cannot be swerved from its course.<br />For this is the way with France +to-day,<br /> Her courage comes from faith,<br />And +she bends her knee ere she straightens her arm;<br /> In +her forward rush toward death.</p> +<p>A jungle of beasts in the heart of the Hun -<br /> War +to the world laid bare.<br />And war has revealed, that France concealed,<br /> Only +the lion’s lair.<br />A lioness fighting to save her own,<br /> She +fights as a lioness can,<br />And strength to the end shall the Unseen +send,<br /> In the spirit of Great Joan.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SPEAK</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Obscured the sun, the world is dark;<br />Maid of Orleans, Joan of +Arc,<br /> Send down thy spark.</p> +<p>Let every heart in France be stirred,<br />By such an all-compelling +word<br /> As thou once heard.</p> +<p>Say to each soul, ‘Lo! I am near;<br />My voice still speaks +in accents clear.<br /> Be still and hear.</p> +<p>‘The France I saved can not be lost;<br />Though tempest-torn +and terror-tossed,<br /> Count not the cost.</p> +<p>‘Give as the maid of Domrémy<br />Gave all - gave life +itself to see<br /> Her country free.</p> +<p>‘Back of great France my spirit towers<br />To aid her through +the darkest hours<br /> With God’s own powers!’</p> +<p>Maid of Orleans, Joan of Arc,<br />Shine through the night, speak +through the dark<br /> The while we hark.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>THE GIRL OF THE U.S.A.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Oh! the maidens of France are certainly fine,<br /> And +I think every fellow will state<br />That the ‘what-you-may-call-it’ +coiffured way<br /> They put up their hair is great!<br />And +they know how to dress, and they wear their clothes<br /> In +a fetching, Frenchy way;<br />And yet to me, there is just one girl +-<br /> The girl of the U.S.A.</p> +<p>I like to listen when French girls talk,<br /> Though +I’m weak in the ‘parlez-vous’ game;<br />But the language +of youth in every land<br /> Is somehow about the same,<br />And +I’ve learned a regular code of shrugs,<br /> And +they seem to know what I say!<br />But the girl whose voice goes straight +to my heart<br /> Is the girl of the U.S.A.</p> +<p>I haven’t a word but words of praise<br /> For +these dear little girls of France;<br />And I will confess that I’ve +felt a thrill<br /> As I faced their line of advance!<br />But +I haven’t been taken a prisoner yet,<br /> And +I won’t be, until the day<br />When I carry my colours to lay +at the feet<br /> Of a girl of the U.S.A.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>PASSING THE BUCK</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Whatever the task that comes your way,<br /> Just +take it as part of your luck.<br />Look it right square in the eyes, +and say,<br />‘This is <i>my</i> task, I’ll do it to-day’:<br /> Don’t +pass the buck.</p> +<p>Oh! whether you cook, or whether you fight,<br /> Or +whether you trundle a truck,<br />Just tackle your job and do it right:<br /> Don’t +pass the buck.</p> +<p>The wheels of the earth have gone, alack!<br /> Deep +into war’s mire and muck.<br />If you want to put it again on +its track,<br />Don’t shift your load on another man’s back:<br /> Don’t +pass the buck.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SONG OF THE AVIATOR</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>You may thrill with the speed of your thoroughbred steed,<br />You +may laugh with delight as you ride the ocean,<br />You may rush afar +in your touring car,<br />Leaping, sweeping, by things that are creeping +-<br />But you never will know the joy of motion<br />Till you rise +up over the earth some day,<br />And soar like an eagle, away - away.</p> +<p>High and higher above each spire,<br />Till lost to sight is the +tallest steeple,<br />With the winds you chase in a valiant race,<br />Looping, +swooping, where mountains are grouping,<br />Hailing them comrades, +in place of people.<br />Oh! vast is the rapture the birdman knows,<br />As +into the ether he mounts and goes.<br />He is over the sphere of human +fear;<br />He has come into touch with things supernal.<br />At each +man’s gate death stands await;<br />And dying, flying, were better +than lying<br />In sick-beds, crying for life eternal.<br />Better to +fly half-way to God<br />Than to burrow too long like a worm in the +sod.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>THE STEVEDORES</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>We are the army stevedores, lusty and virile and strong,<br />We +are given the hardest work of the war, and the hours are long.<br />We +handle the heavy boxes, and shovel the dirty coal;<br />While soldiers +and sailors work in the light, we burrow below like a mole.<br />But +somebody has to do this work, or the soldiers could not fight!<br />And +whatever work is given a man, is good if he does it right.</p> +<p>We are the army stevedores, and we are volunteers.<br />We did not +wait for the draft to come, to put aside our fears;<br />We flung them +away on the winds of fate, at the very first call of our land,<br />And +each of us offered a willing heart and the strength of a brawny hand.<br />We +are the army stevedores, and work as we must and may,<br />The cross +of honour will never be ours to proudly wear away.</p> +<p>But the men at the Front could never be there,<br />And the battles +could not be won,<br />If the stevedores stopped in their dull routine<br />And +left their work undone.<br />Somebody has to do this work; be glad that +it isn’t you!<br />We are the army stevedores - give us our due!</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>A SONG OF HOME</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>I am singing a song to the boys to-day,<br />A song of the home that +is far away.<br />And I know that an echo the word is waking<br />In +many a heart that is secretly aching,<br />Yes, almost breaking, thinking +of Home, dear Home.<br />But thought, dear boys, is a carrier dove,<br />And +it flies straight into the hearts you love.</p> +<p>You picture the days of your youthful joys,<br />The old home circle, +the girls and boys<br />You knew in that wonderful world of pleasure,<br />When +life danced on to a lilting measure;<br />Each scene you treasure, thinking +of Home, dear Home.<br />And here is a thought that is sweet and true +-<br />The ones you long for are longing for you.<br />You picture the +day when the war is done,<br />The duty accomplished, the victory won,<br />And +over the billows our ships go leaping,<br />Into our beautiful harbour +sweeping,<br />And with laughter and weeping, you go back Home, Home, +Home.<br />On the walls of your heart you must hang with care<br />This +beautiful picture, framed in prayer.</p> +<p>Thinking of Home, you are blazing a trail<br />For that glorious +day when our ships shall sail;<br />Where the Goddess of Liberty lights +the water<br />To guide you back from the fields of slaughter,<br />Fair +Freedom’s daughter, who welcomes us Home, Home, Home.<br />So +hold your vision, and work and pray,<br />As you dream of the Home that +is far away.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>THE SWAN OF DIJON</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>I was in Dijon when the war’s wild blast<br />Was at its loudest; +when there was no sound<br />From dawn to dawn, save soldiers marching +past,<br />Or rattle of their wagons in the street.<br />When every +engine whistle would repeat<br />Persistently, with meaning tense, profound,<br />‘We +carry men to slaughter’ or ‘we bring<br />Remnants of men +back as war’s offering.’</p> +<p>And there in Dijon, the out-gazing eye<br />Grew weary of the strife-suggesting +scene;<br />But, searching, found one quiet spot hard by<br />Where +war was not; a little lake whereon<br />Moved leisurely a stately, tranquil +swan,<br />Majestic and imposing, yet serene.</p> +<p>I was in Dijon, when no sound or sight<br />Woke thoughts of peace, +save this one speck of white,<br />Sailing ’neath skies of menace, +unafraid<br />While silver fountains for his pleasure played.<br />Dear +Swan of Dijon, it was your good part<br />To rest a tired heart.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>VEILS</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Veils, everywhere float veils; veils long and black,<br />Framing +white faces, oft-times young and fair,<br />But, like a rose touched +by untimely frost,<br />Showing the blighting marks of sorrow’s +track.</p> +<p>Veils, veils, veils everywhere. They tell the cost<br />Of +man-made war. They show the awful toll<br />Paid by the hearts +of women for the crimes,<br />The age-old crimes by selfishness ill-named<br />‘Justice’ +and ‘Honour’ and ‘The call of Fate’ -<br />High +words men use to hide their low estate.<br />About the joy and beauty +of this world<br />A long black veil is furled.<br />Even the face of +Heaven itself seems lost<br />Behind a veil. It takes a fervent +soul<br />In these tense times<br />To visualise a God so long defamed<br />By +insolent lips, that send out prayers, and prate<br />Of God’s +collaboration in dark deeds,<br />So foul they put to shame the fiends +of hell.</p> +<p>Yet One <i>does</i> dwell<br />In Secret Centres of the Universe +-<br />The Mighty Maker; and He hears and heeds<br />The still small +voice of soulful, selfless faith;<br />And He is lifting now the veil +of death,<br />So long down-dropped between those worlds and earth.<br />Yea! +He is giving faith a great new birth<br />By letting echoes from the +hidden places<br />Where dwell our dead, fall on love’s listening +ear.<br />Hearken, and you shall hear<br />The messages which come from +those star-spaces!<br />That is the reason why<br />God let so many +die;<br />That the vast hordes of suffering hearts might wake<br />Mighty +vibrations, and the silence break<br />Between the neighbouring worlds, +and lift the veil<br />’Twixt life on earth, and life Beyond. +All hail<br />To great Jehovah, Who has given life<br />Eternal, everlasting, +after strife!</p> +<p>Veils, long black veils, you shall be bridal white.<br />Eyes, blind +with tears, you shall receive your sight,<br />And see your dead alive +in Worlds of Light.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>IN FRANCE I SAW A HILL</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>In France I saw a hill - a gentle slope<br />Rising above old tombs +to greet the gleam<br />From soft spring skies. Beyond these skies +dwells hope,<br />But those green graves bespeak a broken dream.</p> +<p>There was a row of narrow beds, new-made;<br />Each bore a starry +banner and a cross.<br />And each the name of one who, ere he played<br />His +rôle of warrior, met earth’s final loss.</p> +<p>They were so young, so eager for the fray!<br />And thoughts of glory +filled each boyish heart,<br />When over dangerous seas they sailed +away<br />To face the foe and play some splendid part.</p> +<p>But in the tedious toil, the dull routine<br />Which must precede +achievement on the field,<br />Disease, that secret enemy with mean<br />Sly +tactics, forced them to disarm and yield.</p> +<p>So they were buried on that hill in France,<br />Before their ears +had heard the battle din;<br />Before life gave them its dramatic chance +-<br />A lasting fame, or glorious death to win.</p> +<p>Yet, looking up beyond their graves of green,<br />I seem to see +them wearing band and star;<br />Men are rewarded in the Worlds Unseen<br />Not +for the way they die, but what they are.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>AMERICAN BOYS, HELLO!</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Oh! we love all the French, and we speak in French<br />As along +through France we go.<br />But the moments to us that are keen and sweet<br />Are +the ones when our khaki boys we meet,<br />Stalwart and handsome and +trim and neat;<br />And we call to them - ‘Boys, hello!’<br />‘Hello, +American boys,<br />Luck to you, and life’s best joys!<br />American +boys, hello!’</p> +<p>We couldn’t do that if we were at home -<br />It never would +do, you know!<br />For there you must wait till you’re told who’s +who,<br />And to meet in the way that nice folks do.<br />Though you +knew his name, and your name he knew -<br />You never would say ‘Hello, +hello, American boy!’<br />But here it’s just a joy,<br />As +we pass along in the stranger throng,<br />To call out, ‘Boys, +hello!’</p> +<p>For each is a brother away from home;<br />And this we are sure is +so,<br />There’s a lonesome spot in his heart somewhere,<br />And +we want him to feel there are friends <i>right there<br /></i>In this +foreign land, and so we dare<br />To call out ‘Boys, hello!’<br />‘Hello, +American boys,<br />Luck to you, and life’s best joys!<br />American +boys, hello!’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>DE ROCHAMBEAU</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>ON THE PRESENTATION OF AN AMERICAN BANNER TO CAMP ROCHAMBEAU BY THE +MARQUISE DE ROCHAMBEAU AT TOURS, FRANCE, JUNE 1, 1918</p> +<p>Here is a picture I carry away<br />On memory’s wall. +A green June day,<br />A golden sun in an amethyst sky,<br />And a beautiful +banner floating as high<br />As the lofty spires of the city of Tours,<br />And +a slender Marquise, with a face as pure<br />As a sculptured saint: +while staunch and true<br />In new-world khaki and old-world blue,<br />Wearing +their medals with modest pride,<br />Her stalwart bodyguard stand at +her side.</p> +<p>Simple the picture; but much it may mean<br />To one who reads into +and under the scene,<br />For there, in that opulent hour and weather,<br />Two +great Republics came closer together;<br />A little nearer came land +to land<br />Through the magical touch of a woman’s hand.<br />And +once again as in long ago<br />The grand old name of de Rochambeau<br />Shines +forth like a star, for our world to see -<br />Our Land of the Brave, +and our Home of the Free.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>AFTER</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Over the din of battle,<br />Over the cannons’ rattle,<br />Over +the strident voices of men and their dying groans,<br />I hear the falling +of thrones.</p> +<p>Out of the wild disorder<br />That spreads from border to border,<br />I +see a new world rising from ashes of ancient towns;<br />And the rulers +wear no crowns.</p> +<p>Over the blood-charged water,<br />Over the fields of slaughter,<br />Down +to the hidden vaults of Time, where lie the worn-out things,<br />I +see the passing of kings.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>THE BLASPHEMY OF GUNS</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>There must be lonely moments when God feels<br />The need of prayer +-<br />Such lonely moments, knowing not anywhere,<br />In any spot or +place,<br />In all the far recesses of vast space,<br />Dwells any one +to whom His prayers may rise,<br />And then, methinks - so urgent is +His need -<br /> God bids His prayers descend.<br />He +that has ears to hear, let him take heed,<br /> For +much God’s prayers portend.</p> +<p>God flings His solar system forth to be<br /> Finished +by beings who befit each sphere.<br />Not ours to pry the secrets out +of Mars;<br /> Our work lies here.<br />To star-folk +leave the stars.<br />There must be many worlds that give God care:<br /> Young +worlds that glow and burn,<br />Old worlds that freeze and fade.<br /> This +world is man’s concern.<br />Methinks God must be very much dismayed,<br /> Seeing +the use we make of earth to-day,<br /> While loud we +pray.</p> +<p><i>Last night, in sleep, beyond the earth’s small zone,<br />Adventurously +my spirit went alone,<br />Past lesser hells and heavens, where souls +may pause<br />To learn the meaning of death’s larger laws,<br />Past +astral shapes and bodies of desire,<br />Past angels and archangels, +high and higher,<br />Until the pinnacles of space it trod,<br />Then, +awestruck, paused, hearing the voice of God.</i></p> +<p>‘Mortals of earth, for whom I shaped a sphere<br />(So spake +the Voice), ‘there rises to Mine ear<br />Eternal praises and +eternal pleas.<br />Now, after centuries, I tire of these.<br />Have +ye no knowledge of the Maker’s needs,<br />Ye who ask favours +and who praise by creeds?</p> +<p>Why has it not sufficed<br />That unto this small earth I sent great +Christ,<br />Divine expression of the mortal man,<br />To aid my plan?</p> +<p>‘Why ask for more when all has been refused?<br />Why praise +My name Who hourly am abused?<br />Why seek for Me or heaven, when in +you dwells<br />Hate’s lurid hells?</p> +<p>‘Persistent praises and persuasive pleas -<br />I tire, I tire +of these;<br />But I, the Maker of a billion suns,<br />Ask men to stop +the blasphemy of guns.’<br />This is God’s prayer.</p> +<p>(<i>There must be many worlds that give God care</i>.)</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>THE CRIMES OF PEACE</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Musing upon the tragedies of earth,<br />Of each new horror which +each hour gives birth,<br />Of sins that scar and cruelties that blight<br />Life’s +little season, meant for man’s delight,<br />Methought those monstrous +and repellent crimes<br />Which hate engenders in war-heated times,<br />To +God’s great heart bring not so much despair<br />As other sins +which flourish everywhere<br />And in all times - bold sins, bare-faced +and proud,<br />Unchecked by college, and by Church allowed,<br />Lifting +their lusty heads like ugly weeds<br />Above wise precepts and religious +creeds,<br />And growing rank in prosperous days of peace.<br />Think +you the evils of this world would cease<br />With war’s cessation?<br /> If +God’s eyes know tears,<br />Methinks He weeps more for the wasted +years<br />And the lost meaning of this earthly life -<br />This big, +brief life - than over bloody strife.<br />Yea; there are mean, lean +sins God must abhor<br />More than the fatted, blood-drunk monster, +War.<br />Looking from His place, looking from His high place among +the stars, God saw a peaceful land -<br />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.<br />And God +said, speaking unto Himself aloud, God said:<br />‘Peace and power +and plenty have I given unto this land; and those tall steeples are +monuments to Me.<br />Now let My people reveal themselves, that I may +see their works, done in My name in a fertile land of peace.<br />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.’<br />God saw the restless, +idle rich in club and cabaret,<br />Meat-gorged, wine-filled, they played +and preened and danced till dawn o’ day;<br />They played at sports; +they played at love; they played at being gay.<br />They were but empty, +silk-clad shells; their souls had leaked away.<br />He saw the sweat-shop +and the mill where little children toiled,<br />The sunless rooms where +mothers slaved and unborn souls were spoiled;<br />While those whose +greedy, selfish lives had thrust the toilers there,<br />He saw whirled +down broad avenues, clothed all with raiment fair.</p> +<p>He saw in homes made beautiful with all that gold can give<br />Unhappy +souls at odds with life, not knowing how to live.<br />He saw fair, +pampered women turn from motherhood’s sweet joy,<br />Obsessed +with methods to prevent or mania to destroy.<br />He saw men sell their +souls to vice and avarice and greed;<br />He heard race quarrelling +with race and creed decrying creed;<br />And shameful wealth and waste +He saw, and shameful want and need.</p> +<p>He saw bold little children come from church and schoolroom, blind<br />To +suffering of lesser things, unfeeling and unkind;<br />He heard them +taunt the poor, and tease their furred and feathered kin;<br />And no +voice spake from home or church to tell them this was sin.<br />He heard +the cry of wounded things, the wasteful gun’s report;<br />He +saw the morbid craze to kill, which Christian men called sport.</p> +<p>And then God hid His grieving face behind a wall of cloud,<br />On +earth they said, ‘A thunder-storm’ - but God had wept aloud.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>IT MAY BE</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p><i>Let us be silent for a little while;<br />Let us be still and +listen. We may hear<br />Echoes from other worlds not far a way.</i></p> +<p>City on city rising, steeple out-topping steeple,<br />Gaining and +hoarding and spending, and armies on battle bent,<br />People and people +and people, and ever more human people -<br />This is not all of creation, +this is not all that was meant!<br />Earth on its orbit spinning,<br />This +is not end or beginning;<br />That is but one of a trillion spheres +out into the ether hurled:<br />We move in a zone of wonder,<br />And +over our planet and under<br />Are infinite orders of beings and marvels +of world on world.</p> +<p>There may be moving among us curious people and races,<br />Folk +of the fourth dimension, folk of the vast star spaces.<br />They may +be trying to reach us,<br />They may be longing to teach us<br />Things +we are longing to know.<br />If it is so,<br />Voices like these are +not heard in earth’s riot,<br />Let us be quiet.</p> +<p>Classes with classes disputing, nation warring with nation,<br />Building +and owning and seeking to lead - this is not all!<br />Endless the works +of creation,<br />There may be waiting our call<br />Beings in numberless +legions,<br />Dwellers in rarefied regions,<br />Journeying Godward +like us,<br />Alist for a word to be spoken,<br />Awatch for a sign +or a token.<br />If it be thus,<br />How they must grieve at our riotous +noise<br />And the things we call duties and joys!</p> +<p><i>Let us be silent for a little while;<br />Let us be still and +listen. We may hear<br />Echoes from other worlds not far away.</i></p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>THEN AND NOW</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>A little time agone, a few brief years,<br />And there was peace +within our beauteous borders;<br />Peace, and a prosperous people, and +no fears<br />Of war and its disorders.<br />Pleasure was ruling goddess +of our land; with her attendant Mirth<br />She led a jubilant, joy-seeking +band about the riant earth.</p> +<p>Do you recall those laughing days, my Brothers,<br />And those long +nights that trespassed on the dawn?<br />Those throngs of idle dancing +maids and mothers<br />Who lilted on and on -<br />Card mad, wine flushed, +bejewelled and half stripped,<br />Yet women whose sweet mouth had never +sipped<br />From sin’s black chalice - women good at heart<br />Who, +in the winding maze of pleasure’s mart,<br />Had lost the sun-kissed +way to wholesome pleasures of an earlier day.</p> +<p>Oh! You remember them! You filled their glasses;<br />You +‘cut in’ at their games of bridge; you left<br />Your work +to drop in on their dancing classes<br />Before the day was cleft<br />In +twain by noontide. When the night waxed late<br />You led your +partner forth to demonstrate<br />The newest steps before a cheering +throng,<br />And Time and Peace danced by your side along.</p> +<p>Peace is a lovely word, and we abhor that red word ‘War’;<br />But +look ye, Brothers, what this war has done for daughters and for son,<br />For +manhood and for womanhood, whose trend<br />Seemed year on year toward +weakness to descend.<br />Upon this woof of darkness and of terror, +woven by human error,<br />Behold the pattern of a new race-soul,<br />And +it shall last while countless ages roll.</p> +<p>At the loud call of drums, out of the idler and the weakling comes<br />The +hero valiant with self-sacrifice, ready to pay the price<br />War asks +of men, to help a suffering world.<br />And out of the arms of pleasure, +where they whirled<br />In wild unreasoning mirth, behold the splendid +women of the earth<br />Living new selfless lives - the toiling mothers, +sister, daughters, wives<br />Of men gone forth as target for the foe.</p> +<p>Ah, now we know<br />Man is divine; we see the heavenly spark<br />Shining +above the smoke and gloom and dark<br />Which was not visible in peaceful +days.<br />God! wondrous are Thy ways,<br />For out of chaos comes construction; +out of darkness and of doubt<br />And the black pit of death comes glorious +faith;<br />From want and waste comes thrift, from weakness strength +and power<br />And to the summits men and women lift<br />Their souls +from self-indulgence in this hour,<br />This crucial hour of life:<br />So +shines the golden side of this black shield of strife.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>WIDOWS</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p><i>The world was widowed by the death of Christ:<br />Vainly its +suffering soul for peace has sought<br /> And found +it not.<br />For nothing, nothing, nothing has sufficed<br />To bring +back comfort to the stricken house<br />From whence has gone the Master +and the Spouse</i>.</p> +<p>In its long widowhood the world has striven<br />To find diversion. +It has turned away<br />From the vast aweful silences of Heaven<br />(Which +answer but with silence when we pray)<br />And sought for something +to assuage its grief.<br /> Some surcease and relief<br />From +sorrow, in pursuit of mortal joys.<br />It drowned God’s stillness +in a sea of noise;<br />It lost God’s presence in a blur of forms;<br />Till, +bruised and bleeding with life’s brutal storms,<br />Unto immutable +and speechless space<br /> The World lifts up its face,<br /> Its +haggard, tear-drenched face,<br />And cries aloud for faith’s +supreme reward,<br />The promised Second Coming of its Lord.</p> +<p>So many widows, widows everywhere,<br />The whole earth teems with +widows. Guns that blare -<br /> Winged monsters +of the air -<br />And deep-sea monsters leaping through the water,<br /> Hell +bent on slaughter,<br />All these plough paths for widows. Maids +at dawn,<br />And brides at noon, ere eventide pass on<br />Into the +ranks of widows: but to weep<br />Just for a little space; then will +grief sleep<br />In their young bosoms, where sweet hope belongs,<br />New +love will sing once more its age-old songs,<br />And life bloom as a +rose-tree blooms again<br /> After +a night of rain.<br />There are complacent widows clothed in crêpe<br />Who +simulate a grief that is not real.<br />Through paths of seeming sorrow +they escape<br />From disappointed hopes to some ideal,<br />Or, from +the penury of unloved wives<br /> Walk +forth to opulent lives.<br />And there are widows who shed all their +tears<br /> Just at the first<br /> In +one wild burst,<br />And then go lilting lightly down the years:<br />Black +butterflies, they flit from flower to flower<br />And live in the thin +pleasures of the hour;<br />Merging their tender memories of the dead<br />In +tenderer dreams of being once more wed.</p> +<p>But there are others: women who have proved<br />That loving greatly +means so being loved.<br />Women who through full beauteous years have +grown<br />Into the very body, souls, and heart<br />Of their dear comrades. +When death tears apart<br />Such close-knit bonds as these, and one +alone<br />Out to the larger freer life is called,<br /> And +one is left -<br />Then God in heaven must sometimes be appalled<br />At +the wild anguish of the soul bereft,<br />And unto His Son must say, +‘I did not know<br /> Mortals +could suffer so.’</p> +<p>But Christ, remembering Gethsemane,<br />Will answer softly, ‘It +was known to Me.’<br />God’s alchemist, old Time, will merge +to calm<br />That bitter anguish; but there is no balm<br />Save the +sweet certitude that each long day<br /> Is +one step in a stair<br />That circles up to where freed spirits stay.</p> +<p>Widows, so many widows everywhere.</p> +<p><i>The world was widowed by the death of Christ,<br />And nothing, +nothing, nothing has sufficed<br />To bring back comfort to the stricken +house<br />From whence has gone the Master and the Spouse.<br />Hasten, +dear Lord, with Thy Millennium, Hasten and come.</i></p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CONVERSATION</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>We were a baker’s dozen in the house - six women and six men<br /> Besides +myself; and all of us had known<br />Those benefits supposed to come +from school and church and brush and pen,<br /> And +opportunities of being thrown<br />In contact with the cultured and +the gifted people of the day.<br /> Being the thirteenth +one among six pairs<br />I deemed it wise to keep apart and let the +others have their say:<br /> And from my vantage-place +upon the stairs,<br />Or in a corner, where I seemed to read, I listened +for some word<br /> That would make life seem sweeter, +or cast light<br />Upon the goal toward which all footsteps wend: and +this was what I heard<br /> Throughout each day and +half of every night.<br />The men talked business, politics, and trade;<br /> They +told of safe investments, and great chances<br />For speculation. +(One man who had made<br /> Pleasure his art, described +the newest dances<br />And dwelt upon each chassé, glide, and +whirl<br />As lovers dwell upon the charms of some fair girl.)</p> +<p>They talked of war, and tried to find its cause,<br /> And +quite deplored the fact that wars must come.<br />But since this desperate +condition was,<br /> They carefully computed what the +sum<br />Of profit might be to a land of peace,<br />And wondered if +times would be harder should war cease.</p> +<p>They spoke of games and sports; told many a story<br /> That +made the listeners laugh; then back from these<br />Always they harked +to money, or the gory<br /> And savage drama playing +overseas.<br />Then there were tales from club and smoking-room -<br />The +submarines of gossip, bringing some name doom.</p> +<p>The women talked of fashions and of plays,<br /> But +more of players and their private lives;<br />Related tittle-tattle +of their words and ways,<br /> Their lightning change +of husbands and of wives.<br />And there was chat of garments and their +price,<br />Of operas and balls and all that gives life spice.</p> +<p>Some talk there was of music, pictures, books,<br /> But +of musicians, painters, authors, more.<br />The way they lived - their +methods and their looks -<br /> The colour of their +eyes - the clothes they wore;<br />And whether it was true, as had been +stated,<br />That gifted people were quite sure to be mis-mated.</p> +<p>They talked of servants, menus, and disease,<br /> And +operations. Each one came in line<br />With some astounding tale +to tell of these,<br /> And of her surgeon’s +skill, which seemed divine.<br /><i>But of that vast Domain where live +our dead<br />And where we all are hurrying, no word was said.</i></p> +<p><i>When we know that goal awaits each one of us a little farther +on,<br />When we know how an ever-increasing company of friends is gathered +there,<br />Why do we not speak of it in our daily conversation?<br />Why +do we not familiarise our minds with thoughts of worlds unseen?<br />There +are many beautiful things to be learned of that country.<br />There +are sacred books of great travellers, whose souls have cried, ‘Hail +across the border’;</i></p> +<p><i>There are truths which have been learned in visions and by revelations:<br />All +the revelations were not given to St. John alone,<br />All the wise +men of the world did not die two thousand years ago!<br />Why do we +not talk of these eternal truths,<br />Instead of wasting all our words +on the evanesent, the ever-changing, the trivial, and the unimportant?<br />There +is but one important theme, and that is Life Immortal.</i></p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>I, TOO</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>I saw fond lovers in that glow<br /> That oft-times +fades away too soon:<br />I saw and said, ‘Their joy I know -<br /> I, +too, have had my honeymoon.’</p> +<p>A young expectant mother’s gaze<br /> Held +earth and heaven within its scope:<br />My thoughts went back to holy +days -<br /> I said, ‘I, too, have known that +hope.’</p> +<p>I saw a stricken mother swayed<br /> By sorrow’s +storm, like wind-blown grass:<br />I said, ‘I, too, dismayed<br /> Have +seen the little white hearse pass.’</p> +<p>I saw a matron rich with years<br /> Walk radiantly +beside her mate:<br />I blessed them, and said through my tears,<br /> ‘I, +too, have known that high estate.’</p> +<p>I saw a woman swathed in black<br /> So blind with +grief she could not see:<br />I said, ‘Not far need I look back +-<br /> I, too, have known Gethsemane.’</p> +<p>I saw a face so full of light,<br /> It seemed with +all God’s truths to shine:<br />I said, ‘I, too, have found +my sight,<br /> I, too, have touched the Fact Divine.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>HE THAT HATH EARS</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>‘He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto +the churches.’ - <i>St. John the Divine.</i></p> +<p>The Spirit says unto the churches,<br /> ‘Ere +ever the churches began<br />I lived in the centre of Being -<br /> The +life of the Purpose and Plan;<br />I flowed from the mind of the Maker<br /> Through +nature to man.</p> +<p>‘I sleep in the glow of the jewel,<br /> I +wake in the sap of the tree,<br />I stir in the beast of the forest,<br /> I +reason in man, and am free<br />To turn on the path of Ascension<br /> To +the god yet to be.</p> +<p>‘I was, and I am, and I will be;<br /> I live +in each church and each faith<br />But yield to no bond and no fetter,<br /> I +animate all with my breath;<br />I speak through the voice of the living<br /> And +I speak after death.’</p> +<p>The Spirit says unto the churches,<br /> ‘The +dead are not gone, they are near<br />And my voice, when I will it, +speaks through them,<br /> Speaks through them in messages +clear.<br />And he that hath ears, in the silence<br /> May +listen and hear.’</p> +<p>The Spirit says unto the churches,<br /> ‘So +many the feet that have trod<br />The road leading up into knowledge,<br /> The +steep narrow path has grown broad;<br />And the curtain held down by +old dogmas<br /> Is lifted by God.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>ANSWERS</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>What is the end of each man’s toil,<br /> Brother, +O Brother?<br />A handful of dust in a bit of soil -<br />His name forgotten +as centuries roll,<br />Though blazoned to-day on Glory’s scroll;<br />For +the lordliest work of brain or hand<br />Is only an imprint made on +sand;<br />When the tidal wave sweeps over the shore<br /> It +is there no more,<br /> Brother, +my Brother.</p> +<p>Then what is the use of striving at all,<br /> Brother, +O Brother?<br />Because each effort or great or small<br />Is a step +on the long, long road that leads<br />To the Kingdom of Growth on the +River of Deeds:<br />And that is the kingdom no man can gain<br /> Till +he uses his hand and his mind and brain,<br />And when he has used them +and learned control<br /> He finds his soul,<br /> Brother, +my Brother.</p> +<p>And after he finds it, what is the end,<br /> Brother, +O Brother?<br />Upward ever its course and trend;<br />For this is the +purpose and aim and plan<br />To seek in the soul for the Super-man +-<br />The man who is conscious that Heaven is near -<br />A bulletin +bearer from There to Here,<br />Finding God dwells in the spirit within<br /> Where +He ever has been,<br /> Brother, +my Brother.</p> +<p>And what will the God-man do when He comes,<br /> Brother, +O Brother?<br />He will better the world or in courts or slums,<br />He +will do in gladness his nearest duty:<br />He will teach the religion +of love and beauty<br />In field or factory, mine or mart,<br />While +He tells the world of the larger part<br />And the wider life that is +yet to be<br /> When spirit is free,<br /> Brother, +my Brother.</p> +<p>When spirit is free, then where will it go,<br /> Brother, +O Brother?<br />Its uttermost summit no man may know,<br />For it goes +up to God in His holy Tower<br />To gather more knowledge and force +and power;<br />Like a ray of the sun it shall shine again<br />To brighten +new planets and races of men.<br />Life had no beginning, life has no +end,<br /> Brother and friend -<br /> Brother, +my Brother.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>HOW IS IT?</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p><i>You who are loudly crying out for peace,<br />You who are wanting +love to vanquish hate,<br />How is it in the four walls of your home<br />The +while you wait?</i></p> +<p>Do those who form your household welcome your approach in the morning<br />As +the earth welcomes the presence of dawn,<br />Or do they dread your +coming lest you censure and complain?<br />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?<br />Do those you claim to +love often hear you talking in love’s language,<br />Or is your +softest tone and your sweetest speech saved for the sometime guest,<br />While +the harsh voice and the sharp retort are used with those you love the +best?</p> +<p><i>You who are praying for the Christ’s return<br />And for +the coming of the Promised Day,<br />How is it in the four walls of +your home<br /> The while you pray?</i></p> +<p>Are you trying to make your home a reflection of what you believe +heaven will be?<br />Unless you are you will never find heaven anywhere;<br />The +foundations of our heavenly mansions must first be built on earth.<br />Unless +you are striving to put in use some of the angelic virtues here and +now,<br />No angelhood will be accorded you hereafter.</p> +<p>Unless you are illustrating your desire for peace by a peaceful, +love-ruled home,<br />You have no right to clamour for a cessation of +hostilities among nations;<br />Nations are only chains of individuals.<br />When +each individual expresses nothing but love and peace in his daily life, +there will be no more war.</p> +<p><i>You who are loudly crying out for peace,<br />You who are wanting +love to vanquish hate,<br />How is it in the four walls of your home<br /> The +while you wait?</i></p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>‘LET US GIVE THANKS’</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>For the courage which comes when we call,<br />While troubles like +hailstones fall;<br />For the help that is somehow nigh,<br />In the +deepest night when we cry;<br />For the path that is certainly shown<br />When +we pray in the dark alone,<br /> Let us give thanks.</p> +<p>For the knowledge we gain if we wait<br />And bear all the buffets +of fate;<br />For the vision that beautifies sight<br />If we look under +wrong for the right;<br />For the gleam of the ultimate goal<br />That +shines on each reverent soul:<br /> Let us give thanks.</p> +<p>For the consciousness stirring in creeds<br />That love is the thing +the world needs;<br />For the cry of the travailing earth<br />That +is giving a new faith birth;<br />For the God we are learning to find<br />In +the heart and the soul and the mind:<br /> Let us give +thanks.</p> +<p>For the growth of the spirit through pain,<br />Like a plant in the +soil and the rain;<br />For the dropping of needless things<br />Which +the sword of a sorrow brings;<br />For the meaning and purpose of life<br />Which +dawns on us out of the strife:<br /> Let us give thanks.</p> +<p>For the solace that comes to our grief<br />In knowing earth’s +season is brief;<br />For the certitude given by faith<br />Of the continents +out beyond death;<br />For the glorious thought that each day<br />Is +speeding us the reward away:<br /> Let us give thanks.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>THE BLACK SHEEP</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<p>‘<i>Black sheep, black sheep, have you any wool?’<br />Yes, +sir - yes, sir: three bags full</i>.’</p> +<p>‘I don’t want any New Thought,’ said he,<br />‘Or +any Theosophy, for, you see,<br />The faith I learned at my mother’s +knee<br />Is good enough for me.<br />Of course, I’m a wee bit +broader than she,<br />Hearing one sermon where she heard three,<br />And +I read my paper on Sunday, instead<br />Of the Bible only. My +mother said<br />I was a black sheep, when she saw<br />I strayed a +trifle away from the law,<br />And didn’t think every one left +in the lurch<br />Who happened to go to a different church;<br />But, +still, in the main, her creed is mine,<br />And I don’t want anything +more divine.’<br />Yet his mother’s mother was more austere;<br />She +taught her children a creed of fear,<br />And she called them ‘black +sheep’ when, with a shock,<br />She saw them straying away from +the flock,<br />Just far enough<br />To get around places they thought +too rough,<br />Like infant damnation and endless hell.</p> +<p>But his mother’s mother’s mother would tell<br />How +her mother thought it was God’s sweet will<br />To punish and +torture a heretic till<br />They drove out the devil that made him dare<br />Think +for himself in the matter of prayer<br />And faith and salvation. +So we see how it is<br />If we look back over the centuries -<br />The +creeds men learned at their mother’s knee<br />When Salem witches +were hanged to a tree,<br />And the pious dames flocked thither to see,<br />Are +not deemed Christian or holy to-day;<br />And the bold black sheep who +went straying away<br />From rut-worn paths in their search for God,<br />And +leaped over the fence into pastures broad,<br />Are the great trail-makers +for mortal souls,<br />Leading the race up to higher goals<br />And +a larger religion; where man must find<br />God dwelling ever within +his mind,<br />Christ in his conduct, and heaven in his thought,<br />And +hell but the places where love is not.<br />A mighty religion that makes +this earth<br />But the cradle that fits us for death’s new birth<br />And +the life beyond it, that is so near<br />Its echoes may reach to the +listening ear.</p> +<p>‘<i>Black sheep, black sheep, have you any wool</i>?’<br />‘<i>Yes, +sir - yes, sir: a whole world full</i>.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>ONE BY ONE</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Little by little and one by one,<br /> Out of the +ether, were worlds created;<br />Star and planet and sea and sun,<br /> All +in the nebulous Nothing waited<br />Till the Nameless One Who has many +a name<br />Called them to being and forth they came.</p> +<p>All things mighty and all things small,<br /> Stone +and flower and sentient being,<br />Each is an answer to that one call,<br /> A +part of Himself that His will is freeing -<br />Freeing to go on the +long, long way<br />That winds back home at the end of the day.</p> +<p>Little by little does mortal man<br /> Build his +castles for joy and glory,<br />And one by one time shatters each plan<br /> And +lowers his palaces, story by story-<br />Story by story, till earth +is just<br />A row of graves in the lowly dust.</p> +<p>One by one, whatever was called,<br /> Must be called +back to the primal Centre.<br />Let no soul tremble or be appalled,<br /> For +the heart of the Maker is where we enter -<br />Is where we enter to +gain new force<br />Before we are sent on another course.</p> +<p>And one by one, as He calls us back,<br /> We shall +find the souls that we loved with passion,<br />In the great way-stations +along the track,<br /> And clasp them again in the +old, sweet fashion -<br />In the old, sweet fashion when earth we trod +-<br />And journey along with them up to God.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>PRAYER</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p><i>Lord, let us pray.</i></p> +<p>Give us the open mind, O God,<br /> The mind that +dares believe<br />In paths of thought as yet untrod;<br /> The +mind that can conceive<br />Large visions of a wider way<br />Than circumscribes +our world to-day.</p> +<p>May tolerance temper our own faith,<br /> However +great our zeal;<br />When others speak of life and death,<br /> Let +us not plunge a steel<br />Into the heart of one who talks<br />In terms +we deem unorthodox.</p> +<p>Help us to send our thoughts through space,<br /> Where +worlds in trillions roll,<br />Each fashioned for its time and place,<br /> Each +portion of the whole;<br />Till our weak minds may feel a sense<br />Of +Thy Supreme Omnipotence.</p> +<p>Let us not shame Thee with a creed<br /> That builds +a costly church,<br />But blinds us to a brother’s need<br /> Because +he dares to search<br />For truth in his own soul and heart<br />And +finds his church in home and mart.</p> +<p><i>Give us the faith that makes us kind,<br />Give us the open sight +and mind -<br /> O God, the often mind<br />That lifts +itself to meet the Ray<br />Of the New Dawning Day:<br /> Lord, +let us pray.</i></p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>BE NOT DISMAYED</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Be not dismayed, be not dismayed when death<br />Sets its white seal +upon some worshipped face.<br />Poor human nature for a little space<br />Must +suffer anguish, when that last drawn breath<br />Leaves such long silence; +but let not thy faith<br /> Fail for a moment in God’s +boundless grace.<br /> But know, oh know, He has prepared +a place<br />Fairer for our dear dead than worlds beneath,<br />Yet +not beneath; for those entrancing spheres<br /> Surround +our earth as seas a barren isle.<br />Ours is the region of eternal +fears;<br /> Theirs is the region where God’s +radiant smile<br />Shines outward from the centre, and gives hope<br />Even +to those who in the shadows grope.<br />They are not far from us. +At first though long<br /> And lone may seem the paths +that intervene,<br /> If ever on the staff of prayer +we lean<br />The silence will grow eloquent with song<br />And our weak +faith with certitude wax strong.<br /> Intense, yet +tranquil; fervent, yet serene,<br /> He must be who +would contact World Unseen<br />And comrade with their Amaranthine throng;<br />Not +through the tossing waves of surging grief<br /> Come +spirit-ships to port. When storms subside,<br />Then with their +precious cargoes of relief<br /> Into the harbour of +the heart they glide.<br />For him who will believe and trust and wait<br />Death’s +austere silence grows articulate.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>ASCENSION</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>I have been down in the darkest water -<br /> Deep, +deep down where no light could pierce;<br />Alone with the things that +are bent on slaughter,<br /> The mindless things that +are cruel and fierce.<br />I have fought with fear in my wave-walled +prison,<br /> And begged for the beautiful boon of +death;<br />But out of the billows my soul has risen<br /> To +glorify God with my latest breath.</p> +<p>There is no potion I have not tasted<br /> Of all +the bitters in life’s large store;<br />And never a drop of the +gall was wasted<br /> That the lords of Karma saw fit +to pour,<br />Though I cried as my Elder Brother before me,<br /> ‘Father +in heaven, let pass this cup!’<br />And the only response from +the still skies o’er me<br /> Was the brew held +close for my lips to sup.</p> +<p>Yet I have grown strong on the gall Elysian,<br /> And +a courage has come that all things dares;<br />And I have been given +an inner vision<br /> Of the wonderful world where +my dear one fares;<br />And I have had word from the great Hereafter +-<br /> A marvellous message that throbs with truth,<br />And +mournful weeping has changed to laughter,<br /> And +grief has changed into the joy of youth.</p> +<p>Oh! there was a time when I supped sweet potions,<br /> And +lightly uttered profound belief,<br />Before I went down in the swirling +oceans<br /> And fought with madness and doubt and +grief.<br />Now I am climbing the Hills of Knowledge,<br /> And +I speak unfearing, and say ‘I know,’<br />Though it be not +to church, or to book, or college,<br /> But to God +Himself that my debt I owe.</p> +<p>For the ceaseless prayer of a soul is heeded,<br /> When +the prayer asks only for light and faith;<br />And the faith and the +light and the knowledge needed<br /> Shall gild with +glory the path to death.<br />Oh! heart of the world by sorrow shaken,<br /> Hear +ye the message I have to give:<br />The seal from the lips of the dead +is taken,<br /> And they can say to you, ‘Lo! +we live.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>THE DEADLIEST SIN</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<p>There are not many sins when once we sift them.<br />In actions of +evolving human souls<br />Striving to reach high goals<br />And falling +backward into dust and mire,<br />Some element we find that seems to +lift them<br />Above our condemnation - even higher<br />Into the realm +of pity and compassion.<br />So beauteous a thing as love itself can +fashion<br />A chain of sins; descending to desire,<br />It wanders +into dangerous paths, and leads<br />To most unholy deeds,<br />And +light-struck, walks in madness toward the night.</p> +<p>Wrong oft-times is an over-ripened right,<br />A rank weed grown +from some neglected flower,<br />The lightning uncontrolled: flames +meant for joy<br />And beauty, used to ravage and destroy.<br />For +sins like these repentance can atone.<br />There is one sin alone<br />Which +seems all unforgivable, because<br />It springs from no temptation and +no need<br />And no desire, save to make sweet faith bleed,<br />And +to defame God’s laws.<br />Oh! viler than the murderer or the +thief<br />Who slays the body and who robs the purse,<br />Is he who +strives to kill the mind’s belief<br />And rob it of its hope<br />Of +life beyond this little pain-filled span.<br />God has no curse<br />Quite +dark enough to punish such a man,<br />Who, seeing how souls grope<br />And +suffer in this world of mighty losses,<br />And how hearts stagger on +beneath life’s crosses,<br />Yet strives to rob them of their +staff of faith<br />And make them think dark death<br />Ends all existence; +think the worshipped child<br />Cold in its mother’s arms is but +a clod<br />And has not gone to God;<br />That souls united by love +undefiled<br />And holy can by death be torn asunder<br />To meet no +more.<br />It must be true that under<br />This earth of ours there +lies a Purgatory<br />For those who seek to rob grief of the glory<br />That +shines through hope of life immortal. In<br />Sin’s lexicon +this is the vilest sin -<br />Needless and cruel, ugly, gaunt and mean,<br />Without +one poor excuse on which to lean,<br />A vandal sin, that with no hope +of gain<br />Finds pleasure only in another’s pain.</p> +<p>God! though all other sins on earth persist,<br />Strike dumb the +blatant, loud-mouthed atheist.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>THE RAINBOW OF PROMISE</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>In the face of the sun are great thunderbolts hurled,<br /> And +the storm-clouds have shut out its light;<br />But a Rainbow of Promise +now shines on the world,<br /> And the universe thrills +at the sight.</p> +<p>’Tis the flag of our Union, the red, white, and blue,<br /> Our +Star-spangled Banner - our pride;<br />Fair symbol of all that is noble +and true,<br /> Flung out over continents wide.</p> +<p>Flung out in its glory o’er land and o’er sea,<br /> With +a message from God in each star;<br />And a glorious promise of peace +yet to be<br /> In the fluttering folds of each bar.</p> +<p>A Rainbow of Promise, bright emblem of hope,<br /> Fair +flag of each cause that is just;<br />No longer in doubt or in darkness +we grope -<br /> In the Star-spangled Banner we trust.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>THEY SHALL NOT WIN</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Whatever the strength of our foes is now,<br /> Whatever +it may have been,<br />This is our slogan, and this our vow -<br /> They +shall not win, they shall not win.</p> +<p>Though out of the darkness they call the aid<br /> Of +the evil forces of Sin,<br />We utter our slogan unafraid -<br /> They +shall not win, they shall not win.</p> +<p>We know we are right, and know they are wrong,<br /> So +to God above and within -<br />We make our vow and we sing our song<br /> They +shall not win, they shall not win.</p> +<p>It rises over the shriek of shell,<br /> And over +the cannons’ din:<br />Our slogan shall scatter the hosts of Hell +-<br /> They shall not win, they shall not win.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<p>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, HELLO, BOYS! ***</p> +<pre> + +******This file should be named helb10h.htm or helb10h.zip****** +Corrected EDITIONS of our EBooks get a new NUMBER, helb11h.htm +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, helb10ah.htm + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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