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SONGS OF DEMOCRACY 
 AND ON OTHER THEMES 
 
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 AND 
 
 ON OTHER THEMES 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES EDWARD RUSSELL 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY 
 
 1909 
 

 Copyright, igog, by 
 CHARLES EDWARD RUSSELL 
 
 All Rights Reserved 
 Published, October, 1909 
 
 ©CI.A<?5146 
 
 THE QUINN & BODEN CO. PRESS 
 RAHWAY, N. J. 
 
TO 
 
 EDWIN MARK HAM 
 
 Poet and Democrat 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 RUSSIA I 
 
 LIBERTfe EGALITE, FRATERNITY .... 7 
 
 JOHN BROWN AT NORTH ELBA 8 
 
 A PILLAR OF SOCIETY 17 
 
 INDIA 18 
 
 A LITTLE SONG FOR '' THE SYSTEM " . . .34 
 
 WENDELL PHILLIPS zy 
 
 MALARIA 42 
 
 ESSEX STREET 46 
 
 THE END OF THE CONCORDAT 58 
 
 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON 59 
 
 MAGDALENA 61 
 
 MARIE SPIRODONOVA 64 
 
 THE WORLD AND THE SPIRIT 67 
 
 *' CAPTAINS OF INDUSTRY" 70 
 
 THE GARDEN 72 
 
 THE DEAD LEADER 75 
 
 THE LAST DAYS OF THOMAS CHATTERTON . 78 
 
 vii 
 
viii CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 SONGS FOR BARBARA 79 
 
 PETRARCH'S 104TH SONNET ...... 88 
 
 MADONNA IN THE HIGHWAYS 89 
 
 VIA REGGIO 90 
 
 THE OLD YEARS . 92 
 
 IN MEMORY OF THEODORE THOMAS ... 93 
 
 THE GOAL 100 
 
 THE RIVIERA loi 
 
 SEA DREAMS 103 
 
 SEA TRIOLETS 104 
 
 FROM SUEZ TO ADEN 106 
 
 THE SOUTHEAST TRADES 108 
 
 ANGAUR ISLAND 109 
 
 15° SOUTH LATITUDE 113 
 
 AMONG THE ISLANDS 115 
 
 IT WAS FOR THIS "8 
 
 NOTES 121 
 
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 RUSSIA 
 
 Art thou awake at last? 
 
 Thou that hast slept so long, 
 Shackled and bound to the Past, 
 
 Drowsy or drunk with old wrong, 
 Now hast thou sprung to thy feet ? 
 
 Thirsty — at last wilt thou drink? 
 Hungry — at last wilt thou eat? 
 
 Dullard — at last wilt thou think? 
 
 In the night of thy sorrow and shame 
 
 Didst thou look upward and find 
 The light of Her torch aflame, 
 
 Her eyes upon thee inclined? 
 Pitying, lucent with tears 
 
 Wept on thy stirless head 
 All these unprofitable years 
 
 When thou wert couched with the dead? 
 
 But dead to the eyes of Her love 
 
 Never are children of Hers. 
 She watches and waits from above 
 
 Till Her song their dim eyelids stirs. 
 ii 
 
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 While the heart of Hope may ache, 
 
 As age upon age is dumb, 
 She knows that the sleeper will wake. 
 
 She knows that Her hour will come. 
 
 With axe and the cord and the prison, 
 
 With guns in the shuddering square, 
 With these they shall quell thee, uprisen; 
 
 They shall hale thee again by the hair. 
 With wailing, with hands hard clenched. 
 
 Thou shalt see thy sons laid low. 
 With blood shall thy streets be drenched, 
 
 Thy heart shall near break with its woe. 
 
 They will fool thee, and daff thee with lies, 
 
 Deride and despoil and bemock; 
 They will flutter old frauds in thine eyes 
 
 While they bind thy limbs to the rock. 
 Of the word of God they will prate, 
 
 Of czar and empire and throne, 
 Of church and the weal of the state. 
 
 The state — which is thou alone. 
 
 With iron thine heart to crush. 
 
 And bloody and iron whips, 
 And an iron gag to hush 
 
 The cry that rose to thy lips, 
 
 2 
 
RUSSIA 
 
 With reviling and scornful mirth, 
 They will thrust thee back to thy cell, 
 
 And heap on thee ashes and earth 
 Through the iron bars of thine hell. 
 
 And the powers of darkness shall deem 
 
 That when thou didst hft thine head 
 It was naught but a vagrant dream 
 
 That stirred thee there on thy bed; 
 And the battening beasts on the thrones 
 
 Shall loll at their ease again, 
 And think of the whitening bones 
 
 And splendid heaps of thy slain. 
 
 And son shall be torn from mother, 
 
 And mothers be slain with shame. 
 And brother shall drag down brother. 
 
 And the Cossacks murder and maim; 
 And one wail shall go up from thy city. 
 
 Scourged for a hoarded hate, 
 Till the pale stars tremble for pity, 
 
 And men learn that thy load is great. 
 
 In the long Siberian nights. 
 
 Pacing the drifted plains. 
 To the stars and the frosty lights 
 
 Thy sons shall show their chains; 
 
 3 
 
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 And their tears shall fall and freeze, 
 And none shall number their sighs, 
 
 And for bitter things like these 
 The day shone fair in thine eyes. 
 
 And many a son of thine 
 
 Shall look down the leveled steel, 
 Down the silent and awe-struck line. 
 
 And wait while his senses reel. 
 His dry lips mumbling thy name, 
 
 And wait while his eyeballs start, 
 And the white-faced troopers take aim 
 
 Here, at his bounding heart. 
 
 To wait with wild thoughts betossed 
 
 Of the flying feet of the years, 
 The life beloved and lost. 
 
 And loves and desires and fears; 
 And wait while the troopers finger 
 
 The black thin springs of death, 
 And the seconds lag and linger 
 
 One horrible space of breath — 
 
 Wait with his shackled feet 
 
 At the edge of his gaping grave. 
 
 And note how the sun shines sweet 
 
 And the green boughs beckon and wave; 
 
 4 
 
RUSSIA 
 
 And wait with intolerable pain 
 For the long level lines to crash, 
 
 And wait with a hammering brain 
 For the flame and the blinding flash. 
 
 All this, all this thou shalt see; 
 
 Thou shalt pay in drops from thine heart 
 Because thou hast yearned to be free. 
 
 Thy wounds shall fester and smart 
 As they tear thy limbs on their rack; 
 
 They shall scourge and brand thee, and thou 
 For their torments shalt turn not back, 
 
 Who hast felt Her hand on thy brow. 
 
 Her hand that hath life for its gift, 
 
 And hope and heart to endure. 
 And light and might to uplift. ' 
 
 Thou hast seen Her, perfect and pure; 
 And the day shall dawn in thy prison 
 
 When Freedom shall burst thy bars 
 And greet thee, unshackled, arisen, 
 
 With eyes that outshine the stars. 
 
 For they turn not back that have known 
 But once in their eyes that light. 
 
 On thee, on thee has it shone ! 
 And thongs and prison and night 
 
 5 
 
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 And thrones and princelings and things 
 That lick the lewd hands of power 
 
 Shall pass on their wasted wings 
 
 When She strikes their inevitable hour. 
 
 And thou — ah, awake at last! 
 
 Thou that hast slept so long, 
 Shackled and bound to the Past, 
 
 Drowsy or drunk with old wrong, 
 Once thou hast sprung to thy feet. 
 
 Thirsty, once thou didst drink; 
 Hungry, once thou didst eat ; 
 
 Dullard no more — thou dost think. 
 
LIBERTE, EGALITE, FRATERNITE 
 
 Blue is the sign of her — blue for her sky 
 
 The signal of her Freedom from of old, 
 
 As wide, as splendid and as uncontrolled, 
 Before whose front the storm clouds fade or fly 
 As mists before the sword of morning die. 
 
 Bright blue for Freedom. And the next broad 
 fold, 
 
 White as high hills that Freedom's sky uphold, 
 Of all men's even birth shall signify. 
 And last the web of fire whose waving wings 
 
 Abroad shall bear this banner far unfurled, — 
 A light wherein the soul of sunrise sings, 
 
 A might whereby the dark is backward hurled, 
 Red symbol of a brotherhood that flings 
 
 Its love about all men of all the world. 
 
JOHN BROWN AT NORTH ELBA 
 
 Better to be not than inert to be, 
 
 With sodden soul, with hands that strike no 
 blow; 
 Better to see not than have eyes that see 
 
 Freedom before this loathsome beast brought 
 low; 
 Better to breathe not than to choke with air 
 
 Rank with old slaughters, taint from slaver's 
 
 pen; 
 Better the darkness and cool dust again 
 Than stand aloof while kites and vultures tear 
 The bleeding hearts of men. 
 
 Better to strike with blunted sword than none; 
 
 Feebly, alone, than not to strike at all : 
 And facing foeward, that last service done, 
 Grasp still a broken weapon when I fall. 
 Life is there none so sweet it may be worth 
 One stain upon the soul, one cringing knee. 
 " Peace ! " and " Have done ! " the faint hearts 
 whisper me. 
 Peace ! and what peace may come upon the earth 
 Until earth's sons be free? 
 8 
 
JOHN BROWN AT NORTH ELBA 
 
 There is no death save only this : to think 
 Before the leveled guns, the gibbet's stair, 
 
 The last day's gates of dawn, the great gulf's brink. 
 Across old years whose memories rise to bear 
 
 No scantest sacrifice, no lifted sword. 
 No momentary stand, no hour of fight, 
 With prayers and tears no watching of the night. 
 
 For Her whose forehead and undying word 
 Make the dark places bright. 
 
 They tell me, mindful men, that I shall fail. 
 These chill and craven souls that sit at ease 
 
 And heed not hissing whip and mother's wail 
 And this piled hell of countless agonies. 
 
 How fail? They fail that fear to testify. 
 For fear or gold the smitten brow abase. 
 Chaffer for conscience in the market place 
 
 And turn the fervent faith to a leprous lie 
 Before God's very face. 
 
 To testify! I know for smaller shame. 
 
 Far less than this blood-crimson crime, men say 
 
 A man once held his hand in ravening flame 
 And watched it vein by vein consume away ; 
 
 And with last murmurs of his failing breath 
 Gave utmost thanks for this great gift that he 
 Before the feet of truth might witness be, 
 
 9 
 
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 And seal a flawless faith above his death 
 That feebler men should see. 
 
 And I, that hear long lonely hours the cries 
 Of myriad souls in torment and the fall 
 
 Of tears unquenchable from hopeless eyes, 
 I, whom the fathers of the covenant call . 
 
 And God has beckoned, shall I falter now. 
 Now, like the hireling shepherds, fear and hide, 
 When His dear grace the way has opened wide 
 
 And blessed the cause on this unworthy brow, 
 The sword upon this side ? 
 
 To testify by fire! But this my heart 
 
 A fiercer pang than flame or knife has cleft. 
 I grieve not if the time be come to part 
 
 With these few laboring days that may be left 
 To this worn frame and head whereon there beat 
 
 More sorrows as the shadows longer grow. 
 
 Old now, a hunted, hated thing, I know 
 I may not long for Her do service : meet 
 It is that I should go. 
 
 But not as men fed fat on days of sloth, 
 Unminding of the message, full of ease. 
 
 Like prating priests of Baal and Astaroth, 
 Who love to show the dust upon their knees : 
 
 ID 
 
 il 
 
JOHN BROWN AT NORTH ELBA 
 
 Nay, when the summons seeks me let it find 
 Me joyous as one bidden to a feast, 
 Still upright in the harness, though the least 
 
 Of those that fight the fiends that make mankind 
 A dull and driven beast. 
 
 I am the dying tree whose ancient root, 
 Sent far abroad, begins to fail at last; 
 
 And men shall gather of me no more fruit, 
 Nor mark this shadow on their pathway cast. 
 
 But ere the Gardener Time shall thrust aside 
 The trunk whereof there is no further need 
 Some light-winged waif or flying stray of seed 
 
 The wind with liberal hand may scatter wide 
 To blossom into deed. 
 
 '' And greater love no man may have than this." 
 
 Yea, one is greater : more than life I gave. 
 I muse on little hands and childish kiss 
 
 And laughter of first footsteps, lone and brave. 
 Till something chokes me. Ah, what whispered 
 things 
 Of quiet green-grown hill and northern pine, 
 Through parched-up prairie-grass and tangled 
 vine 
 Above your grave the low-voiced west wind sings 
 This night, lost sons of mine? 
 II 
 
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 I closed the eyes of five and kneeling down 
 
 Kissed those chill lips and cheeks and smoothed 
 away 
 
 From damp white brows the boyish locks of brown, 
 And prostrate in the dust made shift to pray 
 
 My drops of agony might witness make, 
 
 Even in the scorching tides that round me swept, 
 If I with contrite heart the creed had kept, 
 
 If I had sacrificed for Freedom's sake 
 
 While faithless warders slept. 
 
 Across the silent strings of this great harp 
 
 That old October winds have robbed of tune 
 
 I hear the village church bell chiming sharp, 
 And down the road that in the dawning moon 
 
 Thick laid with silver of the frost winds round 
 I see the shadows moving churchward, where 
 (Thin streams of incense in the crisping air) 
 
 Mouth-service and lip-worship raise the sound 
 Of gracious praise and prayer. 
 
 They praise Him whom with word and deed they 
 mock. 
 
 Yea, whom in His own images they slay, 
 And of His altar make an auction block. 
 
 His word a sling to snare their human prey : 
 In holy hymns His kingdom they acclaim, 
 
 12 
 
JOHN BROWN AT NORTH ELBA 
 
 Salvation sing with smug and lying lips. 
 Refresh their faith above the blood that drips, 
 Exalt the slave trade in His precious name 
 And bless the clotted whips. 
 
 The Church holds with the mighty, now as when 
 
 Against her Cromwell warred and Milton cried 
 With wrath that shook the affrighted souls of men. 
 
 Yea, ever with the mighty : side by side. 
 In craft close-brothered, Priest and Ruler stand; 
 
 While fooled or fettered Man, their sport or 
 spoil, 
 
 Enriches with his sweat their leagues of soil 
 Who jeer his blinded eyes and groping hand 
 And fatten on his toil. 
 
 " As ye have done it not to these," He said : 
 And churchmen strike the lowest lower still. 
 
 And hate the laden heart, the stricken head. 
 And find according to their recreant will 
 
 God loves His children not if they be black. 
 Yea, black are these of His. But blood is red. 
 And from His wounded back and thorn-crowned 
 head 
 
 Up the long toil of Calvary's winding track, 
 What colored drops were shed? 
 
 And still with light ineffable above 
 The misty shadows of the mortal span 
 
 13 
 
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 Burns like a star the life of Him whose love 
 Yearned at the dark and woeful lot of man; 
 
 Who fain would ease the captive of his chains, 
 On His own shoulders up this rugged road 
 Bear the slave's stripes or beaten bondman's load, 
 
 And knew In master's as in bondman's veins 
 The common tide that flowed. 
 
 And as for that great love men pierced His side 
 And nailed His hands and feet and scarred His 
 brow 
 
 And mocked and spat upon Him as He died, 
 So crucifix and scourge they cherish now 
 
 For him that takes the stricken soul to friend, 
 That fain a healer of man's hurts would be, 
 From some old bonds the toiler would set free. 
 
 And lift to light some weary backs that bend 
 Beneath old tyranny. 
 
 Always on him that thinks to thrust a hand 
 Between the wolf of Greed and man its prey. 
 
 On him shall hatred stamp the self -same brand, 
 Caiaphas judge him and some Pilate slay. 
 
 While by the bloody cross the priests applaud. 
 Yet to the darkened prison-house of need 
 Dear light streams downward from the wounds 
 that bleed, 
 
 14 
 
JOHN BROWN AT NORTH ELBA 
 
 And crosses herald dawns when Force and Fraud 
 Shall perish with old Greed. 
 
 On silent silver nights like this, when clear 
 
 By drifted roadside every shadow lies 
 And breathless is the sparkling vault, I hear 
 
 The crying of the prophets and mine eyes 
 Behold the visions of the things to be; 
 
 Then as winged fire there falls on me new might; 
 
 Then in my hand seems placed a rod to smite 
 The rock whence living waters shall make free 
 The souls in chains and night. 
 
 For by so much as all dear things are dear, 
 (This world for freemen beautiful and good, 
 
 These tender touches of the changing year, 
 This joy of stars, this fragrance of the wood,) 
 
 By so much as to us this earth is sweet. 
 In so much more intolerable pain 
 The mute unmeaning seasons wax and wane 
 
 To these that with bent backs and fettered feet 
 Drag on a lengthening chain. 
 
 Whose wrongs about the slowly opening gate 
 Of patient heaven beat, whose sorrows cry 
 
 For vengeance, primal, vast, predestinate; 
 Whose wounds are witnesses to God on high, 
 
 Whose stripes have no atonement but in blood, 
 
 15 
 
SONGS OF DEMOCRACYi 
 
 Whose famished souls your garners have not fed, 
 Who dwell in darkness that your hate has 
 shed — 
 For these what answer but the ruining flood, 
 Whereof all streams are red ? 
 
 Not with these eyes of sense shall I behold 
 The day of wrath whereon the flaming sword 
 
 By thunders led, and terrors manifold. 
 Proclaims the awful chariot of the Lord. 
 
 And yet across this southward rise of ground 
 A far-borne hymn of goodly battle hums, 
 A clamor as of mortal conflict comes. 
 
 And my soul leaps to hear the trumpets sound 
 And roll of hurrying drums. 
 
 i6 
 
A PILLAR OF SOCIETY 
 
 Lo, for a little space the sturdy sleeper. 
 
 With parted eyelids toward this hell of pain, 
 Sighs with forced breath, " Am I my brother's 
 keeper? " 
 
 And sleeps again, 
 Above the waste and dreary devastation 
 
 That his own hands incarnardined have spread, 
 Sleeps while the cruel wheels of his creation 
 Go plashed with red. 
 
 17 
 
INDIA 
 
 (Sonata) Allegro 
 
 I. Allegro. II. Adagio. III. Minuet : Trio : Minuet : 
 Trio — Scherzo. IV. Allegro moderato. 
 
 For I have clasped thee close in these mine arms, 
 And I have bound thee with mine odorous hair, 
 
 And snared thy soul with lilt of singing charms, 
 And made thee swoon with spice and heavy air. 
 Yea, I have held thee with mine hair, 
 Thy drooping eyes made drunk with heat. 
 And then my smooth brown brow swept bare, 
 The anklets tinkling on my feet. 
 The armlets gleaming on mine arms. 
 The subtle music round me shed, 
 The drowsy fume of scented air, 
 And eyes thy thirsty eyes found sweet. 
 Wove thee about with endless charms. 
 With deadly fruit then thou wast fed: 
 For when from fairer cheeks than mine 
 Thou camest, curious like a child, 
 With hands that drew my face to thine, 
 i8 
 
INDIA 
 
 Then didst thou hear, grown strangely wise, 
 Barbaric cymbals, faint and wild, 
 And glimpse old rivers, sunny isled. 
 While through thy being, vein by vein, 
 My poison ran like wizard wine. 
 To bear the spell that makes thee mine. 
 Now if I call to thee "Arise!" 
 Not wailing winds nor northern sea 
 Shall hush that poignant cry from thee, 
 And till thou rise and come to me 
 Thou shalt not find thy rest again. 
 Rememberest thou that once when sick 
 
 Of colors and sweet sound. 
 Of cassia buds and incense-stick 
 
 And flowers thou hadst found. 
 Thy soul made moan for a cooler breath, 
 
 A slower pulse than mine, 
 And thou wouldst hear what the north wind saith 
 
 Across the northern pine? 
 Ah, then came by a vision fleet 
 
 Of leagues of shining snow, 
 Of battling tempests, quivering sleet. 
 
 Sharp fog and icy floe. 
 The leaden weight of sober skies, 
 
 The long lean lines of rain. 
 And thou didst wake with restless sighs 
 To clasp me close again. 
 Yea, well thou knowest whose thou art, 
 19 
 
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 And all the changes in thee wrought, 
 Whose soul is stamped upon thine heart, 
 Whose name comes first in all thy thought. 
 A serpent stung thee on the brow 
 When I kissed thee — and what art thou ? 
 
 I am not fair; you shall not trace 
 
 The rose and lily in my face, 
 
 And how I charm you may not tell. 
 
 You only know while the ages flow, 
 
 A witch, I weave and weave the spell. 
 I am not fair and in my hands. 
 Dry with the desert's scorched up sands. 
 And in the shadow of my face. 
 And borne upon my quick hot breath, 
 Are winging shafts or seeds of death. 
 I am not fair: and in my hair, 
 As you untwine it braid by braid, 
 The poison of old asps is laid. 
 And oft across my spice-strewn floor 
 One steps with bated breath to trace 
 The rings by many a serpent made; 
 Or stops, of glittering eyes afraid. 
 That range my ivory couch before. 
 There is no rose in this dusk face. 
 But, ringed with ropes of sleepy pearl. 
 With silver on my sloping breast. 
 And slender fashioned like a girl, 
 With none of these I make the spell; 
 
 20 
 
INDIA 
 
 Nor with the silken sheeny vest 
 Of colors like the soundless deep, 
 Strange reds and browns that search and 
 
 burn, 
 And blues where from the eyeballs turn, 
 Wherein I sleep. 
 I am not fair; but for my sake 
 Men scar the lips of angry seas, 
 And scorn all calmer ways for these. 
 In my dank swamps their beds to make. 
 
 I love thee not; I have no will 
 
 To lay this spell upon thee still. 
 
 I would my blood might blot 
 This thing from blood of thine. 
 
 Thou knowest I love thee not. 
 Nor loves thee child of mine. 
 Yet when with truth I tell thee this. 
 There is no love in my bought kiss, 
 
 Lo, for a little while 
 
 As one that knows full well, 
 
 I see thy cool, slow smile 
 Steadfast upon me dwell. 
 But thou and I must make our way. 
 There is no breaking of that spell 
 Though sharp to thee the end may be 
 And sharp for me the pains of hell. 
 The fetters hold and none may say 
 What things lie forward on our way. 
 
 21 
 
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 For I have clasped thee close in these mine arms 
 And wound thee in the meshes of mine hair, 
 
 And snared thy soul with lilt of singing charms 
 And made thee swoon with spice and heavy air. 
 
 Lo, in the chill of northern mist, 
 
 Alone, in crowds, by day or night, 
 
 Far wandering on a beaten strand 
 
 Or caught up in a clanging fight. 
 
 My breath shall stir the brow I kist, 
 
 My touch be laid upon thine hand. 
 
 All else shall falter with the years. 
 
 Thy deeds and loves and thoughts grow dim, 
 
 But thou shalt see between thy tears 
 
 My face and body brown and slim. 
 
 And thy last breath half-choked with sighs 
 
 Shall break with inarticulate cries 
 
 At thy last vision of mine eyes. 
 
 Yet I am not fair; you shall not trace 
 
 The rose or lily in my face. 
 
 I only know, while the ages flow, 
 
 A witch within my painted cell 
 
 I weave and weave the subtle spell. 
 
 So runs our fate. Not eyes of mine 
 May cleave the shadows to the end. 
 Nor shall thy wit nor craft divine 
 What ruins or what wrecks impend. 
 2^ 
 
INDIA 
 
 But fear not thou. Let feast thine eyes 
 On brooding face and jeweled arms, 
 The silken subtle splendors weft 
 About these hollow halls of mine, 
 The endless glories of my skies, 
 The fanes the strange old years have left, 
 The air that sparkles like new wine, 
 The soul that in my sunset lies. 
 Nay, fear not. Let thy men make bold 
 With all the gems that line my hair, 
 The rings of cost that load mine arms 
 And those rich stuffs my camels bear; 
 Make count and measure, dealer-wise, 
 Of all the cups of crusted gold. 
 And sum and say the potent charms 
 That make and mar the perfect spell. 
 Stretch out thine hand, for all is well. 
 Thou canst not tell by what strange spell 
 I lead thy footsteps down to hell — 
 I lead thy footsteps down to hell. 
 
 II 
 
 Mother sad, of all these tribes and nations. 
 Bowed beneath thy load of tribulations, 
 Lift the languid eyes old slumbers steep: 
 Death is coiled about you while you sleep. 
 
 23 
 
 Adagio 
 
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 Death beneath thy domes has made his dwelling, 
 Lift thy languid eyes and see, O mother ! 
 Lo, his icy breath upon thy children, 
 Lo, his nest close by thine ancient altars. 
 Was it then for this the sun-lit splendors 
 Girt these brows of thine with glory when, 
 Mother proud of all the mighty nations. 
 Sons of thine brought spoils before thy feet? 
 Song was thine then, O forgotten mother! 
 Now thy lips are dumb, thy lyres long mute. 
 Song thou madest for the coming sunrise. 
 Now the sunset strikes on tuneless lips. 
 What shall ail thee, mother, that thy spirit. 
 Singing once, and free beneath the stars. 
 When wild music beat and surged within thee 
 Starts up never now to any strain? 
 Star and leaf and cloud — have these no 
 
 meaning ? 
 Winds shall waken not a note for thee? 
 Shalt thou dwell beneath these blues supernal 
 Thrilled by no fierce yearning to be free ? 
 All thy sons afar to this strong heart-beat 
 Keep their march along the starry way : 
 Thou alone amid thy tribulations 
 Liest steeped in slumber, linked with death. 
 Death hath many a seal and symbol of thee. 
 Lift thine head, look forth and see thy plains 
 Darken with the shadow of his pinions. 
 24 
 
INDIA 
 
 All thy ways and wastes resound with wailing 
 Rouse thee but a moment, thou shalt hear 
 Down the drifting circles of thy river 
 Hour by hour the drone of funeral chant. 
 Dust of death upon thy fanes and altars, 
 Light of death on all thy ghastly fields. 
 Songs of death resounding in thy highways, 
 Words of death between thy pallid lips: 
 Yea, for all thy name among past nations, 
 Thou thyself art but a dream of death. 
 Once we saw thy strong right arm uplifted. 
 
 Once a fire of hope within thee sprang, 
 Sword for distaff in thine hand was shifted. 
 
 Song about thy moldered halls outrang. 
 What did ail thee, then, what mad delusion. 
 
 That thy sword was turned to thine own heart? 
 What delirious demon of confusion 
 
 Brought thee to the draggled thing thou art ? 
 Life — is it so hard that men had rather 
 Lie dull clods upon the breast of earth? 
 Death — is it so soft that men embrace it? 
 Is it better to be blind than see? 
 Stifling, wilt thou yet breathe air of heaven? 
 Fainting, wilt thou yet lay hold of life? 
 Who shall help thee, mother? Who, 
 Laying hand to hand may bid thee cheer? 
 
 Free thine eyes of deathly dew? 
 Free thine heart of childish faith and fear? 
 
 25 
 
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 Melancholy mother, where is help? 
 None may help thee, none may serve or save. 
 Hand is not that may to thee bring cheer. 
 Saving only hand of thine, fair mother. 
 These are chains none other may cast from thee. 
 These are spells that thou alone mayst break. 
 Those that hold thee only to despoil thee, 
 Wilt thou look for hope or help from them? 
 Help they have for thee like help the bird has 
 From the fowler or the leaf from storms; 
 Help like that the victim has when looking 
 Down the chill blue steel that spells his death; 
 Help as doves from snakes, and hares from 
 
 vultures, 
 Hope like that the tiger gives his prey. 
 Hope! Yea this — that life be not enduring. 
 Death be not too long delayed for thee. 
 Dark Is dense upon thee, yea, we know it. 
 Dark, may be, too dense for any light. 
 Once thou wert the world's one lamp, our mother : 
 In thine heart of hearts is not one spark? 
 Yet is light so sweet, so sweet. 
 None that know thee may not yearn 
 Once to see thine altars burn. 
 Once to hear thy marching feet. 
 Other brows than thine have borne 
 Dust of shame as deep as this : 
 Shame has vanished with Her kiss, 
 26 
 
INDIA 
 
 Hers whose face is like the morn. 
 Even Freedom's. Thou canst hear 
 Sounds of Her in that far north : 
 Marches, as Her sons wheel forth, 
 'Music, as Her voice rings clear. 
 They had darkness dense as thou : 
 Now with chainless hands and feet 
 These have sought and found Her sweet, 
 These look up with unstained brow. 
 Wilt thou lie alone among the nations, 
 Chained and soiled and naked in thy shame ? 
 Wilt thou only kneel and cringe and grovel 
 While all others rise, from fear set free ? 
 Shall thy lips still kiss the hands that smite thee 
 While all others beat old bonds to swords ? 
 Who shall help thee, mother? Who, 
 Laying hand to hand may bid thee cheer. 
 
 Free thine eyes of deathly dew, 
 Free thine heart of childish faith and fear? 
 Thou shalt help thee, mother; thou alone. 
 Rend from hands and wrists the rusting fetters, 
 Write thy name again in living letters 
 Where for age on age its splendors shone. 
 Thou shalt walk erect that lieth prone; 
 Thou shalt heal the million mouths that moan, 
 Thou alone 
 
 27 
 
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 III 
 
 Minuet : Trio : Minuet : Trio — Scherzo 
 
 What the year is bringing 
 When May comes singing 
 Some snatch of morning song among the maples 
 red and green, 
 
 What woods are portending 
 When summer is ending 
 And apples in the orchard burn the browning leaves 
 between, 
 
 Right well we know 
 Whose footsteps go 
 Through golden sand or burnt-up land with flam- 
 ing suns aglow. 
 
 How dawn is tender 
 On bamboos slender 
 And clusters of lush millet thronging thick about 
 the well; 
 
 How mangoes squander 
 In jungles yonder 
 Green lilies of their gleaming leaves and sweet 
 breaths good to smell; 
 You know that hear, 
 Low tuned and clear. 
 When monsoons cease and suns increase, the 
 promise of the year. 
 28 
 
INDIA 
 
 But none of these is sweet 
 
 And none of these is fair 
 Compared with Her whose feet 
 Shine on the mountains where, 
 Ringed with the blue and gleaming dome 
 Freedom hath made Her home. 
 
 Before Her Fear hath fled 
 And Life and Joy are one; 
 
 The light about Her head 
 Is as the morning sun. 
 
 There is no foul nor fearful thing 
 
 In the shadow of Her wing. 
 
 She hath all gracious ways 
 All pleasure of sweet sound, 
 
 The fullness of ripe days, 
 The tilth of fruitful ground; 
 
 She is more sweet than pleasant shade 
 
 By rustling banyans made. 
 
 The mark that lingers 
 Of little fingers 
 Thou knowest; and little feet that flutter to and 
 fro in play; 
 
 29 
 
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 The face that meets thee, 
 The hand that greets thee 
 Home coming from the weary fields at the dun 
 death of day; 
 
 And the Hght that falls 
 On mud-built walls 
 When with full note from little throat the bird 
 from thicket calls; 
 
 Or when eyes returning 
 New love's first yearning 
 Burned in thy beating breast one instant and again 
 looked down; 
 
 Or when thou wert twining 
 Her dark hair, shining 
 And flying from the twisted braid that makes her 
 little crown; 
 
 Or when thy feet 
 Went first to meet 
 Thy love full blown — and thou hast known what 
 life may have of sweet. 
 
 But sweeter than all these 
 Is love and service given 
 
 To Her whose victories 
 
 Are half the lights of heaven. 
 
 Whose radiant face is like a star 
 
 Turned on Her sons afar. 
 30 
 
INDIA 
 
 In Her hands she hath no gold, 
 
 No prize is theirs to give, 
 But the great gift they hold 
 
 Is that the dead shall live. 
 For slaves rise up from fetters free 
 Where'er Her rule may be. 
 
 To serve Her and to love Her! 
 
 Once ere death to know 
 The fire that dwells above Her 
 
 In man's heart aglow. 
 There is no glory great as this. 
 No triumph and no bliss. 
 
 The soul of the wind and the song it sings, 
 The goals of its flight on its flying wings. 
 
 The message of daylight 
 
 The presage of Maylight, 
 And stardawn and moondawn are Hers, all Hers. 
 The laughter of children, their 'loving hands. 
 The sun and the shadows on harvest lands. 
 
 The curl of white windrift. 
 
 The spray of the spindrift. 
 The heart of the ocean that throbs and stirs. 
 The flash of white wings in the morning air, 
 The scent of wild clover too faint and rare, 
 
 31 
 
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 The joy of the sowers, 
 
 The song of the mowers, 
 The humming- of tunes in the giant firs, 
 The sunHght of hving, the faith made clear, 
 The soul that bows down to the earth to hear, 
 
 The creed of beauty, 
 
 The song of duty, 
 The love of the wildwood are Hers, all Hers ! 
 All suns that are shining to light and lead. 
 All flowers that are fruitful of thought and deed, 
 
 Of hope all the pleasure. 
 
 Of peace all the treasure, 
 And courage triumphant are Hers, all Hers! 
 
 IV 
 
 Allegro moderato 
 
 How long, how long, thou sluggard, wilt thou wear 
 This badge of thine abasement in thine hair? 
 
 How long shall these things, weaving at thy 
 shroud. 
 
 About thy drowsy palaces be proud 
 And from thy nerveless hands the treasure tear? 
 
 Lift up thine hands once strong, thy face once fair, 
 To Her who waits behind the sundawn there. 
 Who murmurs o'er thy smitten head, low- 
 bowed, 
 
 ''How long! How long!" 
 32 
 
INDIA 
 
 The tears that even in sleep thine eyelids bear 
 She knows that sees Her children everywhere, 
 And waits while others reap where She has 
 plowed, 
 And waits while bitter mists the sun becloud; 
 And She shall wait for thee and not despair — 
 How long? How long? 
 
 33 
 
A LITTLE SONG FOR *' THE SYSTEM" 
 
 Still have your fling, my masters 
 
 Press on your pleasant way. 
 Heed not if huge disasters 
 
 May skirt some other day; 
 
 You are of the anointed 
 
 And we but things appointed 
 
 To serve your sovereign will — 
 To serve and offer from our need 
 The largess due from need to greed. 
 
 Dear lords, be blithesome still. 
 
 Wanton and waste and wallow, 
 Stretch out your easeful span, 
 
 Bemock with pretense hollow 
 The laboring soul of man, 
 That patient, uncomplaining, 
 Through waxing strength and waning. 
 Your joys and gains ensures. 
 
 Yours is the tilth of thrifty times. 
 
 Of golden ways and sunny climes. 
 So long as he endures. 
 
 Debauch, debase, bemire; 
 
 Load the altars with loathsome dust; 
 
 34 
 
A LITTLE SONG FOR " THE SYSTEM 
 
 Quench the old sacred fire. 
 Give over to greed and lust. 
 Freedom with things forgotten, 
 Faith with things rank and rotten. 
 Justice halting and cold, 
 No need have ye for fear or shame 
 As with your hirelings 3^ou acclaim 
 Always the lordship of gold. 
 
 Rewrite in your greasy letters 
 
 The old tablets of the law, 
 Bind up with gilded fetters 
 
 And clutch with gilded claw. 
 
 On us work all your pleasure 
 
 Who toil to make your treasure, 
 
 A patient ass and strong; 
 Be confident and light of heart 
 In stately hall and money mart, 
 
 We thank you for our wrong. 
 
 Rot out the heart of the nation. 
 
 Control its courts and camps. 
 Thrust into the highest station. 
 
 Your smug smooth thieves and scamps. 
 
 We know, we hope, our duty. 
 
 We sodden things and sooty; 
 
 Take all and do not spare. 
 35 
 
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 What fault, O lords, have we to find 
 We serfs that bear the baser mind? 
 Thieve on! We do not care. 
 
 But the time will come, O rulers, 
 O lords in fine array, 
 
 When we shall fool the foolers, 
 And turn the pleasant play; 
 When Force and Fraud will avail not 
 And the awakened man will quail not 
 But smite his bond in twain. 
 
 What shall you say if he but ask 
 
 The reckoning for his long sore task, 
 And his stolen hours again? 
 
 36 
 
WENDELL PHILLIPS 
 
 Oh for a heart Hke thine that never quailed 
 In the darkest night, the wildest storm of 
 
 strife; 
 The heart that knew the North Star burned 
 
 though veiled 
 And thither held, whatever winds were rife, 
 The long unwavering steerage of its life ! 
 So brave, so tender and through all so pure ! 
 That would like tempered steel all blows 
 
 endure, 
 But with divine compassion melt above all 
 
 wrongs it could not cure. 
 
 Great heart! Great heart! 
 When comes to lead upon our part 
 
 One like thee? 
 For all the dull times yearn for might 
 As weary darkness for the light 
 And thirsting winds for the sea! 
 
 Thou sawest man stretched on his cross, the hands 
 Of Labor pierced with nails, the wounded feet, 
 The stricken head, the thorns and bloody bands, 
 And those that by the crucifix found seat 
 
 37 
 
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 And watched man's agony and called it sweet; 
 And from the lips no fear nor force could quell 
 Such wrath divine and glorious thunders fell 
 No man might hear but heard therein the marching 
 song of Freedom swell. 
 
 Oh for a voice like thine, as strong to wake 
 The fat complacent soul from its smooth sleep. 
 To ring like thine with living truth, to make 
 With noble wrath the laggard pulses leap 
 And smite the springs of action, hidden deep; 
 The voice that in the stillness was a prayer, 
 And yet rose clear above the battle's blare 
 In those supernal words of right that nerved men's 
 souls to strive and dare. 
 
 Great voice! Great voice! 
 When comes to make our hearts rejoice 
 
 Thy trumpet call? 
 A sound whereat hope lives again 
 In the wronged hearts of toiling men 
 And custom's fetters fall! 
 
 And men said then that all had been but vain : 
 They said the nation born of blood and tears 
 And rescued with incalculable pain 
 Would drift the quoted moral for the years, 
 A thing for unclean jests and cynic sneers; 
 
 38 
 
WENDELL PHILLIPS 
 
 Till those that called her harlot saw the brand 
 Plucked from the altar, held in thy sole hand, 
 And awe fell on the ribald lips and new light on 
 the troubled land. 
 
 Oh for a hand like thine that might have won 
 Gold and all gauds and coronals of praise 
 Or honored ease, and was outstretched for none, 
 But only to men fallen on these ways. 
 To heal with hope, to comfort and upraise; 
 That strove not save to serve or to defend, 
 That had the tired toiler's hand to friend 
 And dared to be uplifted to the sunlight, stainless 
 to the end. 
 
 Pure hand ! Strong hand ! 
 Whose sign was blessing or command, 
 
 Come back to guide 
 The children of the pristine creed 
 That from the ark of faith and deed 
 Have strayed and wandered wide. 
 
 For thou the faith didst hold that had been (ight 
 To lead through mists of many a doubtful day; 
 And thou the fire didst keep that in the night 
 Blazed forth to show the fathers whither lay 
 By perilous steeps the upward winding way. 
 
 39 
 
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 And when unfaithful men would fleer and flout 
 And deem the ancient beacons were burned out, 
 Thine was the strength that rose triumphant over 
 every sordid doubt. 
 
 Oh for a faith like thine! For now the road 
 Is hemmed ahead by these vile things of Greed 
 And shadowed by the wings that brood and bode 
 Till even hearts that hopes of Freedom feed 
 Half doubt if there be light beyond indeed. 
 But thou, beholding with prophetic eyes, 
 Sawest the soul of the Republic rise 
 With disensanguined robe, with brow unbranded 
 to the morning skies. 
 
 Strong faith! Pure faith! 
 To whom was as a mist or wraith 
 
 Each shape of fear, 
 We that struggle in the dark 
 Crave of that steadfast fire a spark 
 To give us hope, down here. 
 
 Hate had no power to harm one gracious head. 
 Wealth had no snare to win from one straight path 
 One man that there with perfect trust did tread. 
 We marvel now to think how often hath 
 Malice laid wait in vain for thee, or wrath 
 
 40 
 
WENDELL PHILLIPS 
 
 Struck at thy breast with keen or poisoned blade, 
 And thou, unhurt, unmoved and undismayed 
 Hast recompensed in perfect love the blows that 
 thou wouldst not evade. 
 
 Oh for a spirit such as thine that wrought 
 Above all dust and dross of selfish aim, 
 That purely gave its all of toil and thought 
 And had no care for calumny nor blame. 
 Praise, prize nor laurel, victory nor fame; 
 That thrust a shield between the weak and strong 
 And eased on lowly limbs the bondman's thong. 
 Great heart that knew no passion save for right, 
 no hatred but of wrong. 
 
 Great heart! Great heart! 
 From that high place where now thou art 
 Send us some sign. 
 For we that fain would share thy fight 
 Lack courage, patience, love, and might, — 
 And these, all these, were thine. 
 
 41 
 
MALARIA 
 
 You think that with a sleave of thread you've fet- 
 tered fast the ancient beast, 
 
 The ravening maw will not run red with any blood 
 of yours, at least. 
 
 You think that with some paper vote, some custom 
 that your people hold. 
 
 You keep those fingers from your throat that throt- 
 tled liberty of old. 
 
 You think because you do not see the hand that 
 sways the scepter now 
 
 You walk secure among the free, with soul unbound, 
 with unshamed brow; 
 
 The while this Force you thought to slay, this slav- 
 ering and malignant thing. 
 
 Keeps as of yore its wonted way in the air that's 
 poisoned by a king. 
 
 A thousand shapes it hath, this foe that feedeth on 
 
 the heart of man : 
 For one his champions have brought low since first 
 
 the weary fight began 
 A hundred wind their slime about, a hundred rend 
 
 with claw and beak, 
 42 
 
MALARIA 
 
 And louder than your loyal shout echoes the starv- 
 ing victim's shriek. 
 
 What boots it now by what new name you call the 
 monster, many-lived, 
 
 If that man's curse remain the same, he struggle on- 
 ward bound and gyved? 
 
 What boots it that with lying songs the splendor 
 of your state you sing 
 
 And ease no whit that load of wrongs in the air 
 that's poisoned by a king? 
 
 The tinsel tawdry thrones but throw a fitful glamour 
 
 over these, 
 The reeking ways wherein men go with foreheads 
 
 stained, with crooking knees. 
 To a lump of marl may no man kneel, no man may 
 
 hail one great of birth, 
 But in his soul the taint shall feel, upon his brow 
 
 the grime of earth. 
 For great may no man be but he that serves the 
 
 common brotherhood, 
 And strives or dies to set men free and knows the 
 
 common bond of blood. 
 And this the flower ye have slain; for there is no 
 
 sweet growth will spring 
 But only weeds of lust and gain in the air that's 
 
 poisoned by a king. 
 
 43 
 
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 For freedom is a thing no more of chainless bands 
 
 and unbound feet, 
 With Hmbs that many a fetter wore her sons have 
 
 sought and found her sweet. 
 The slaves are fettered in the mind, the men that 
 
 cringe at custom's sway. 
 And in some hoar tradition find a shrine whereto 
 
 they kneel and pray. 
 In man's great soul, her dwelling place, she hath 
 
 erected her one throne. 
 This Freedom that, with double face, you hymn and 
 
 worship for your own. 
 With you She hath no part nor lot. Her luminous 
 
 and spotless wing 
 This reek and murk endureth not in the air that's 
 
 poisoned by a king. 
 
 You sing that where your banner flies round and 
 
 round the spinning sphere 
 No bondman's heavy groans arise, there flows no 
 
 bondman's heavy tear. 
 How shall you name the things that slink, borne 
 
 down by caste and custom's blight. 
 Whose dreadful chimes of fetters clink across your 
 
 threshold day and night? 
 You have no slaves? What then are these, whose 
 
 joyless lives of hopeless toil 
 
 44 
 
MALARIA 
 
 Win at the last this precious ease in six feet of 
 
 your slaveless soil ? 
 And of these slaves you have no heed. What fruit 
 
 shall any land forth bring 
 But sordid thought and selfish deed in the air that's 
 
 poisoned by a king? 
 
 You press to loyal, fervent lips, you bear aloft with 
 
 loyal hands, 
 The dreadful flag that drips and drips with martyrs' 
 
 blood in many lands. 
 Ensanguined by its endless stain and drunk and 
 
 mad with victory 
 It pleases your great hosts to feign this is some 
 
 emblem of the free. 
 There is no banner worth a cheer but one that tells 
 
 of dawning light. 
 Of men released from force and fear, from feudal 
 
 forms and old world might. 
 The world shall spit on this your flag that now afar 
 
 your legions fling, 
 And scorn it for a raveled rag in the air that's 
 
 poisoned by a king. 
 
 45 
 
ESSEX STREET 
 
 A Bourgeois Excursion 
 
 Down here where lines of quivering heat, 
 Shot up from pavement stones a-bake. 
 
 Dance till with throbbing of their feet 
 Mine eyeballs ache, 
 
 All day by dreary hives arow 
 The echoes of unslackening toil. 
 Of men that grind and grieve and moil, 
 
 Resound and grow. 
 
 All night from reeking courts arise 
 Strange tumults of a maddened throng, 
 
 Curse and blow and children's cries 
 And thick-voiced song; 
 
 While driven on by dismal care 
 Beats to and fro the human tide. 
 The parched and eager lips made wide 
 
 To drink in air. 
 
 So stagnant, rancid, rank, it swoons, 
 
 Slow, heavy, drowsy as in death. 
 Moist leavings of extinct monsoons 
 Exhaust of breath; 
 46 
 
ESSEX STREET 
 
 And in its languid pauses swell, 
 As if one sensed the very fume 
 And tasted of the fiery doom. 
 
 The steams of hell. 
 
 The utmost soul within one yearns 
 For air that is not foul and thick; 
 
 The blood of beating pulses burns, 
 The heart turns sick; 
 
 With fever and fierce thirst opprest, 
 As men that have a hideous dream. 
 Along the stones the stragglers stream 
 
 And have no rest. 
 
 And pour upon their heat and pain 
 The only opiate they can find. 
 
 And dull the sense of burning brain 
 And tortured mind; 
 
 While luring with false smiles and becks 
 A soiled and sorry creature skulks 
 About a drift of human hulks 
 
 And shattered wrecks 
 
 I wonder if she thinks? May be! 
 
 Or in her mind's grey muddled maze 
 Is room still left for memory 
 Of childish days, 
 
 47 
 
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 Her father's kiss upon her brow, 
 And things she used to say and sing? 
 I wonder if the dead days sting 
 
 Her crazy now? 
 
 What if her father came to mark 
 
 The flower to which his bud had grown, 
 
 A lost soul drifting out to dark 
 . ;./ And death alone? 
 
 I will not think of that — she bears 
 No doubt the burden of her sin. 
 Here is the house — I enter in 
 
 And mount the stairs. 
 
 Where crowds up to the house-top climb, 
 And yearn beyond the iron bars, 
 
 And toss and turn a weary time 
 Beneath the stars, 
 
 And count the clock-bells one by one. 
 And wish the iron night were past, 
 Till on its burning wings at last 
 
 Bounds the red sun. 
 
 I note gaunt cheeks and wolfish eyes. 
 
 Bare children with ill-covered bones. 
 And hear what awful hymnals rise 
 Of mocking moans 
 48 
 
ESSEX STREET 
 
 Up toward that huge unhelping arch 
 
 Whose faint and fretted lace-work seems 
 Bedewed this night with bloody gleams 
 
 That sear and parch. 
 
 All sad, I know, so sad — but why 
 
 Confront me with these phantoms now? 
 
 I cannot bear men's burdens, I, 
 Upon one brow. 
 
 The world is ruled by righteous law, 
 And unthrift gathers its own bane. 
 The lightless life, the endless pain, 
 
 The empty maw. 
 
 But children of these frightful places. 
 Swarming in multitudes untold. 
 
 Whose little, wannish, too-wise faces 
 Seem strangely old — 
 
 What heartening hope of life have they 
 Except, to this same wheel fast bound. 
 To tread the same dull weary round 
 
 The same dull way? 
 
 My mind goes wandering to and fro 
 
 Among old fragments conned or heard 
 And wings a word I used to know, 
 A foolish word — 
 
 49 
 
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 Equality! But who can think 
 Of equal bond and kindred ties 
 With these whose fated pathway lies 
 
 Down hell's own brink? 
 
 These spectres rob me of my rest. 
 I cannot quite forget that one, 
 
 That dying mother, on her breast 
 Her dying son. 
 
 I am not of such race as they; 
 
 Why should they harrow me with thought 
 Whose better brain and vein were wrought 
 
 Of other clay ? 
 
 What if these toiling things should grow 
 
 A-weary of their ordered state? 
 Our scorn strike fire that, smouldering low, 
 
 Should flame in hate ? 
 How if from some such pit should rise 
 
 Some portent of these wasted years, 
 
 Of ruined lives and futile tears 
 From hopeless eyes? 
 
 Of all the sun's dear daily light 
 
 They mostly know, I think, what falls 
 Between late dawn and early night 
 Down these dank walls. 
 50 
 
ESSEX STREET 
 
 And in such ground what things may grow, 
 In healthless brains what seed take root. 
 To bear at last what blood-red fruit. 
 
 Aye — who shall know? 
 
 At least I do my duty, I; 
 
 My soul is free from all such qualms. 
 I joy to think no year goes by 
 
 Without mine alms. 
 To church and school with liberal hand, 
 
 I give (in ratio to my store) ; 
 
 There is no man that hath done more 
 In all this land. 
 
 How hot and heavy is the breath 
 
 That from this steaming basement springs, 
 
 As if it dripped with dews of death 
 From its black wings; 
 
 Or if a fever lived and had 
 
 Some loathsome lash or monstrous mace 
 Wherewith it beat men in the face 
 
 And made them mad. 
 
 I must get hence and quickly lest 
 
 Some taint or savor of this thing. 
 Some subtle trace of plague or pest 
 About me cling; 
 
 511 
 
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 Or lest, its evil breath far blown, 
 Some sewer wind of scandal rise, 
 And speed with grins and winking eyes 
 
 If this be known. 
 
 And yet I linger, yet I gaze 
 
 Where down the murky, noisome street, 
 
 In one bare loft the gas-jets blaze 
 With stifling heat, 
 
 And weariest all the phantoms seem 
 Of toiling men and whirling wheel, 
 And all the sounds of buzzing steel 
 
 Heard in a dream. 
 
 The mill that grinds up flesh and bone, 
 And tears the soul and sense apart. 
 
 Whose slaves wear out from stone to stone 
 The drooping heart; 
 
 Who pay in bitter drops and thin. 
 Wrung by this newer, sharper rack. 
 In blinded eyes and bended back. 
 
 Some other's sin. 
 
 Stop there, stop there! How far astray 
 The foolish flickering thought may go ! 
 The needful part that these men play 
 Full well I know 
 52 
 
ESSEX STREET 
 
 Soldiers of industry I I cry, 
 
 Toil on! be proud to make still more 
 Our fortunes that were great before, 
 
 Although yoii die. 
 
 For each in life his lot must bear, 
 And patient be and serve therein. 
 
 Nor seek with strife and envious care 
 His ease to win. 
 
 The place of these is fixed by God; 
 Then deep were my impiety 
 If I should insubmissive be 
 
 Beneath his rod. 
 
 How lean and leaden looks the face 
 Above the flying needle bent! 
 
 I wonder from what alien race 
 That wolf was sent 
 
 To plague us with its hungry jaws. 
 Its crouching form and catlike tread, 
 Its scowl, its strange misshapen head 
 
 And hands like claws! 
 
 How is it that across this scene 
 
 The woody hills and sun-steeped leaves 
 And village chestnuts gold and green 
 And fields and sheaves 
 
 53 
 
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 Drift sudden out, keen-cut and clear; 
 And that white church that stands alone, 
 Thin steepled, half with vines o'ergrown 
 
 This many a year? 
 
 Our scanty meadow ran beside, 
 
 Down where I pitched the scented hay. 
 
 And watching once the sunny tid 
 That on it lay. 
 
 The preacher perched above my head. 
 The sun and shadows faded out 
 And all my mind was drawn about 
 
 One thing he said. 
 
 " God knows no rank, no iirst, no last. 
 But, children of one even birth. 
 
 One sacred tie of blood binds fast 
 All sons of earth; 
 
 ''And rich or poor, and great or small. 
 Are like dry drift of old brown leaves 
 The wind in earliest winter weaves 
 
 Behind yon wall/' 
 
 But were these praters once to see 
 
 This world stripped bare they moon about. 
 This figment of fraternity 
 Would ravel out 
 
 54 
 
ESSEX STREET 
 
 Before dear truth that does not dream 
 But shows the reefs that must divide 
 The stagnant from the moving tide 
 
 In the human stream. 
 
 I marvel if amid their pain 
 
 Some ghmpse fleets by of dewy grass, 
 
 Or where along a poplared plain 
 Cloud-shadows pass, 
 
 Or where the cold sea-water drips 
 
 From worn-down rocks by steepy brinks, 
 Or dark springs where the goatherd drinks 
 
 With laughing lips. 
 
 I marvel if no visions tender 
 
 Of mountain town or little lake 
 
 Ferns and round hills and hemlock slender 
 Grey memory wakes ; 
 
 Of boy and girl, of goat-bell's jingle. 
 Deep piny breaths and valleys long, 
 Or lapsing waves' sonorous song 
 
 Down murmurous shingle. 
 
 If in those days the cool dim sea 
 
 Its arms about them all had thrown 
 And kissed them till they ceased to be 
 With but one moan, 
 
 55 
 
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 Were sleep not better than this strife 
 To hnger out with brutish toil 
 And scanty crusts this little coil 
 
 Of bitter life? 
 
 Absurd! For, master of his fate, 
 
 Man makes or mars to his own will; 
 The magic of the fortunate 
 Is thrift and skill. 
 Or very like, this coarser stuff 
 Of baser brains and meaner minds 
 Its own congenial level finds 
 Of crude and rough. 
 
 Not otherwise my way I won. 
 
 From step to step to this fair height; 
 
 My craft, the sense of duty done 
 With all my might. 
 
 And if such consecrated aim. 
 
 Such high resolve and will of steel, 
 To things like these have no appeal 
 
 Whose is the blame? 
 
 Who is to blame then ? And who makes 
 
 This vast black cavern of despair? 
 Who weaves the shape of fear that shakes 
 The dwellers there? 
 
 56 
 
ESSEX STREET 
 
 So pondering, not so much at ease, 
 I turned me homeward, firm of mind 
 For no more striving to unbind 
 
 God's mysteries. 
 
 For this must be His work and will ; 
 
 Not otherwise might these things grow 
 
 Whose wise and awful purpose still 
 We may not know. 
 
 Or if it be not God, — then who? 
 
 Then strode one from that dreadful place 
 And thrust a finger in my face 
 
 And thundered—" Youl " 
 
 SI 
 
THE END OF THE CONCORDAT 
 
 Lo ! in the East, the first broad bands of Hght ! 
 
 It is my France again, as oft before. 
 
 As to saved mariners looks sweet the shore, 
 So at the lapse of this long reign of night 
 Looms to the watching world her visage bright. 
 
 She gives the signal, holds the torch once more, 
 
 As when from heads of kings the crowns she 
 tore. 
 And forward flashed to lead the hosts of Right. 
 
 It is not dark on earth, for she hath spoken; 
 
 Nor bitter now, for she hath slain despair. 
 I see the ranks of Force dismayed and broken, 
 
 I see the lips of Freedom, fierce and fair. 
 Shout ! for this shines the long expected token ; 
 
 Shout! for the daylight breaks along the air. 
 
 S8 
 
WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON 
 
 Blows ! and all shames ! and twitching hands 
 That fain would claw or choke him dead; 
 
 Prison, and want, and iron bands, 
 And curses heaped upon his head ! 
 
 Hot hatreds and the colder wrath 
 
 That hissed or hid along his path! 
 
 And through all these he walked as one 
 
 Whose inner peace outpours like May-day sun 
 
 The light of perfect love, the joy of service done. 
 
 They haled him down the hooting street, 
 
 They mocked and mired the gentle face. 
 They snarled to see the buffets beat 
 
 About his brows — in that same place 
 Where stood of old the sacred shrine. 
 Blood-bought, of Freedom the divine. 
 So fared he for his grievous wrong 
 Who listened to the earth's eternal song 
 That all her children to one race and blood 
 belong. 
 
 He would not lift a hand to lengthen 
 The life he held no more his own 
 
 59 
 
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 Than his whose blood was shed to strengthen 
 
 The seed the earher saints had sown. 
 All life, all breath, all toil, all rest, 
 Fed but the one fire in his breast, 
 And praise and blame and praise again 
 Unnoted screamed or sang within his ken 
 Who strove not save to heal the stricken hearts 
 of men. 
 
 O son of Christ ! O steadfast saint ! 
 
 O life that burns aloft, alone! 
 O flame unflecked by sordid taint, 
 
 And stronger from each tempest grown ! 
 Great lamp that fired the cloudy span 
 Till hearts leaped up with hope for man. 
 Along our foreland Time, the sea 
 Blots lesser light by light but threats not thee, 
 Bright with pure love and kindled for the race 
 to be! 
 
 60 
 
MAGDALENA 
 
 The saffron dawn supplants the purple night, 
 The wide-winged morning wins from dark to 
 
 bright 
 And all her colors come and go and leave 
 In other souls the sense or sound of light — 
 But yours that knows not noon from dark-eyed 
 
 eve, 
 In whose dead sight there are no tints to weave. 
 
 You that along a lone and fearful track 
 
 Look and behold no hue but only black ; 
 
 You to whose sense the songs of things are dumb, 
 
 To whom no suns nor springs nor tides come back; 
 
 Who dwell, whatever days or deeds may come. 
 
 Within a darkened chamber, cold and numb. 
 
 In other eyes are myriad lights that shine. 
 Faith is a torch and hope a star divine. 
 And morrows burn and sunsets presage fair. 
 Or river ripples glisten line on line. 
 There are no lights nor faiths for you that bear 
 In your dead heart one night of dead despair. 
 
 6i 
 
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 As one that feels the damp of his own tomb, 
 Or hears the words that seal his lingering doom, 
 You go apart with horror-haunted eyes, 
 You grope in this immitigable gloom; 
 You, tortured spirit in the Pit of Sighs, 
 Sad with dumb wails and inarticulate cries. 
 
 Incurable! for we have doomed it so. 
 We wise blind fools that know not what we know, 
 We crawlers, we of tainted word and deed. 
 That, lowly, scorn another head brought low, 
 That mock your scars while we have those that 
 
 bleed 
 And yield no mercy whereof most we need. 
 
 W^e that go grimed with faults as black as yours. 
 We whose weak eyes each wandering light allures. 
 We that have joy to heap up wrong on wrong, 
 We that tear wide our wounds in search of cures. 
 We that the hurt would scourge with sharper thong. 
 We that mix harsher notes in Discord's song. 
 
 We that sow pain as seed is sown in earth. 
 We that make hell and view it with mad mirth. 
 We that are deaf when the woeful world makes 
 
 moan, 
 We that are blind to flowers of death and birth. 
 We that find music in the prisoner's groan, 
 We, we, are they whose hands first cast the stone. 
 
 62 
 
MAGDALENA 
 
 Ours that run red with many a brother's blood, 
 Ours that dip deep in many a loathsome flood, 
 Ours that go gathering dust and leaves and chips, 
 Ours that are foul from fumbling in the mud, 
 Ours skilled to snatch the crusts from needy lips. 
 Ours that are hard from handles of the whips. 
 
 " Fallen " we call you, sister. If we fell 
 
 With every stumbling down such steeps of hell, 
 
 To hear all hours the stricken spirits mourn, 
 
 And, leprous, with the sad soul-lepers dwell, 
 
 Where is the man of all men woman-born 
 
 That might make bold to brand thee with his scorn ? 
 
 We of the world that made you what you are. 
 Across the face of time this crimson scar. 
 This trampled soul, this burnt and blackened thing. 
 How should we fare before some heavenly bar 
 If through the azure courts your cry should ring 
 And you flit by on torn and broken wing? 
 
 But I, my sister, standing with the rest, 
 By these old chains of custom still opprest. 
 As if I might for mine own sins atone. 
 Hurl too my missile at your bleeding breast. 
 Self -scorning and with wonder that the stone 
 Returns not from your breast to bruise mine own. 
 
 63 
 
MARIE SPIRODONOVA 
 
 Saint, that through the long Siberian night 
 The slow cold stars dost scan 
 
 For any breaking of the laggard light 
 That thou didst dream for man, 
 Madonna, round whose holiest head 
 A deathless aureole is shed, — 
 What praise on any lip may be 
 Fit for a soul supreme like thee? 
 What tribute but our tears bring we 
 Who know thee living that art dead ? 
 
 Living: although grey silence comes to seal 
 The great heart pangless now. 
 
 Living: although the frosty shadows steal 
 About the broad pure brow. 
 Yea, living: thou whose life was thought. 
 In one great deathless triumph wrought. 
 It is not thee they hurt, this frame 
 Their beasts would scar and mar and shame. 
 On thee, a spirit and a flame, 
 Their force and fangs and claws are naught. 
 
 64 
 
MARIE SPIRODONOVA 
 
 If these could quench the starry lights, or slay 
 The dawn, or with their might 
 
 Keep captive still the flying feet of day 
 In caverns of this night, 
 So could the thong and torture win 
 Something upon the soul within; 
 To whom all flames of heavenly fires 
 All lights that burn on mountain spires 
 As lofty thoughts and dear desires 
 And all things pure and high are kin. 
 
 This brow whereon the iron heels were set 
 
 Was ours, my saint, not thine: 
 And drop by drop thy blood has paid our 
 debt. 
 The guilty world's and mine. 
 For we that sit at hearthstone ease 
 And lift no hand on things like these 
 And watch with calculating eyes 
 The flood of misery rise and rise. 
 What fits us now but penitent cries 
 And dust-bowed heads and suppliant knees? 
 
 Yea, for red sins of ours thy blood was shed, 
 
 For us the painful breath. 
 For us torn wounds and weary stricken head, 
 
 For us the lingering death. 
 
 65 
 
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 The cause of man in all these lands 
 Was set within thine own sweet hands 
 And when at the divine great blow 
 This trampler en men's hearts lay low 
 Lighter was all the wronged world's woe, 
 And looser every toiler's bands. 
 
 Content ! Content ! have ease for all the rack ! 
 
 Is it not, martyr, well? 
 For chains and pains and fires he comes not 
 back 
 Whom thou didst send to hell. 
 The fiend is cold within one brain, 
 The heart is stilled that fed on pain, 
 The hand that loved to rend and mar. 
 Let all these slaves serve their red czar — 
 Keep thou thine eyes upon this star, 
 They cannot make him live again. 
 
 66 
 
THE WORLD AND THE SPIRIT 
 
 The World 
 
 Stars were bright and skies were blue 
 Ere man's life and shall be after, 
 
 Clouds spread wings and spindrift flew, 
 Waters, rippling into laughter, 
 Blessed bare vasts and pathless places. 
 What, then, care ye whether man 
 Free or unfree dreams his span. 
 
 Light as leaves the wild winds strew 
 
 Round and round the dim wood's spaces? 
 
 Prate ye of a growing light 
 
 That shall be his lamp for guiding? 
 
 Swift his footsteps pass toward night, 
 Lights and lamps have no abiding. 
 Wasters of the days that wither. 
 What achieve ye for this shade 
 On the dial dimly made, 
 
 Man, that has not strength nor sight. 
 
 Knows not whence and knows not 
 whither ? 
 
 67 
 
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 The Spirit 
 
 Bitter is the span and brief, 
 
 Few and faint man's steps, we know it; 
 
 But of fairer fruit or leaf 
 
 Wliat the seed may be we sow it, — 
 We of feeble hands that grope, 
 We that bent on seeding time 
 Heed no fruits of summer's prime, 
 
 We that plant Time's perfect sheaf 
 Planting winnowed grain of Hope. 
 
 Yea — for man is all in all. 
 
 Barren were all fields and mirthless. 
 
 Day to day should songless call. 
 
 Streams be mute and winds be worthless, 
 Should men see these things and mind not. 
 Every man that is set free 
 Looks toward freer Men-to-be 
 
 Whom, while days shall rise and fall. 
 
 Chains shall hold not, mists shall blind 
 not. 
 
 Whence and whither know not we. 
 
 Nor when comes the chainless morrow; 
 
 Dust by land or drift by sea, 
 
 Joy shall touch us not, nor sorrow. 
 68 
 
THE WORLD AND THE SPIRIT 
 
 We shall watch and go our way; 
 Yet at last when worn-out eyes 
 Close upon the dawnless skies. 
 Even then the cry may be 
 
 ** On the hills the wheels of Day ! '' 
 
 69 
 
" CAPTAINS OF INDUSTRY " 
 
 (Close) 
 
 And all the old westward face of time grown grey- 
 Was writ with cursing and inscribed for death; 
 But on the face that met the morning's breath 
 
 Fear died of hope as darkness dies of day. 
 
 A. C S. 
 
 So slow the shadows move, so slovv! The blood 
 Of saints and martyrs seems all shed in vain. 
 The feudal seed still bears the sanguine bud, 
 The bud brings forth the bitter fruit of pain. 
 No less the driven slave tugs at his chain, 
 The master lolls at ease, the throne holds sway. 
 Forms change, the fetters clang the self-same song; 
 Names change, but hearts are blasted still with 
 
 wrong ; 
 Still Force with fires of torture lights his way 
 And all the old Westward face of Time grown grey. 
 
 For all these swarming streets of dreadful hell. 
 For these lost souls therein that moll and grope, 
 For the lords of gold that slay to thrive, or sell 
 Scant bloody bread for the price of light and hope, 
 
 70 
 
" CAPTAINS OF INDUSTRY " 
 
 Fat lords that hold the other keys, and ope 
 The gates of burning hell — who answereth? 
 Lo, lords, how leprous all your fingers look! 
 Ye mind us of that state of France that shoo;: 
 Of old like this — whose face, the record saith, 
 Was writ with cursing and inscribed for death ! 
 
 Ye mind us, masters of the dark that dwelt 
 Across the lovely face of France before 
 Her sleeping soul was stirred, before she felt 
 The deep corrosion of the chains she wore. 
 Take note : her spoilers had your pride — and more. 
 With thong and goad and taunt that tortureth 
 They worked their wanton will on drudge and 
 
 slave ; 
 And not on lord alone, nor royal knave, 
 Lingered the livid light that poisoneth, 
 But on the face that met the morning's breath. 
 
 Yet a few years and like a vv^ithered leaf 
 In the red rapture of a tide of fire 
 Shriveled the royal knave and lordly thief. 
 Sifting the ashes of that splendid pyre, 
 Lordlings, I ask you if no portents dire 
 Your hands upon the rose of pleasure stay? 
 No dim misgivings and no furtive doubt? 
 No solemn thought that comes and dwells about 
 The fateful grateful time whereof men say 
 Fear died of hope as darkness dies of day? 
 
 71 
 
THE GARDEN 
 
 This bush that found the softer soil 
 Had grown until its shaggy head 
 
 Obscured the gardener and his toil. 
 Obscured the white rose and the red. 
 
 And marveling men gazed o'er the wall 
 And praised the bush in speech and song, 
 
 And marked the trunk grown fair and tall. 
 The vivid leafage, green and strong. 
 
 It sent abroad its roots and shoots, 
 From sun and dew it gathered might. 
 
 And men foresaw that splendid fruits 
 Should fall if harvest tide came right. 
 
 And other tillage was forgot 
 
 In pride of that great spreading tree; 
 
 What wholesome growths might droop and 
 rot, 
 What flowers might fail, were naught to me. 
 
 There came no rose-drift down that way, 
 The red rose and the white had died; 
 72 
 
THE GARDEN 
 
 That this great bush might gain its sway 
 The kindher roots of earth were dried. 
 
 No shafts of sunlight sifted down 
 Through spaces of the lofty woof; 
 
 The grass beneath turned sick and brown, 
 The rank air swooned below that roof. 
 
 And all was dark within, without, 
 
 And filled with bats and creeping things; 
 
 And for old faith a sordid doubt 
 
 Fluttered my sense with unseen wings. 
 
 There was a shrine my fathers' hands 
 Had reared with toil and blood to be 
 
 A lantern to all struggling lands, 
 A sign and symbol to the free. 
 
 And I was wont to worship there. 
 
 With low bent head hold solemn thought. 
 
 And incense burn of praise and prayer 
 Before an altar dearly bought. 
 
 Until this tree made dark the door, 
 
 Defiled the shrine with things of shame. 
 
 Scattered foul leaves upon the floor 
 And on the altar quenched the flame. 
 
 73 
 
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 It spread, my tree, until its growth 
 
 Had hidden walks and choked the gate, 
 
 And naught grew there but weeds of sloth 
 And things of wrong and things of hate. 
 
 And I awoke to find a limb 
 
 Had thrust athwart my window pane, 
 And made my hearth look strangely dim. 
 
 And shut me from the day again. 
 
 And I cried out. Hew down the tree! 
 
 Phick up its maze of deadly root! 
 For roses and clear air to me 
 
 Are more than all its golden fruit! 
 
 74 
 
THE DEAD LEADER 
 
 (Theodore Thomas died January 4, 1905) 
 
 And now, great soul that thus the end has found 
 
 Where laboring hands are still, where care is 
 naught, 
 Although we knew that with celestial sound 
 
 Beyond the marvelous music of your thought. 
 With strain and song unutterably swxet. 
 
 The mighty dead to make you room arose, 
 And unimagined joy should lead your feet 
 
 Through endless bloom, by fadeless garden close. 
 Still, still, with undlmmed eyes not one could see 
 The place where once your face w^as wont to be. 
 
 So dull, so selfish, and so weak we are. 
 
 We fain would have him labor w^ho has peace. 
 And stay him with our love who hears afar 
 
 The faint sure call that bids his trouble cease. 
 But ah, so much you meant to us, so much! 
 
 That now as one in utter dark we grope, 
 As one whose hand has lost the friendly touch 
 
 Of stronger hand, of stainless faith and hope. 
 We cannot choose but sit with low bowed head 
 And with dumb anguish crave again our dead. 
 
 75 
 
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 " It may be best " — so hollow sounds the word, 
 
 And hollow every word that seeks to heal 
 The heavy woundings of the certain sword. 
 
 There is no turning of that destined steel. 
 The silence smites the splendid life in twain 
 
 And strikes the hand upon the garnered sheaf. 
 Bids cease the weaving of the busy brain 
 
 And for the laurel wreathes the cypress leaf. 
 We guess not why — ^but stumbling on we give 
 With tears blind thanks that such a life did live. 
 
 We see the noble work complete, and know 
 
 That while men live and feel and starward yearn, 
 The fruitage of your restless toil will grow. 
 
 The flame you lighted will not cease to burn. 
 But oh, my leader, how shall that fulfill 
 
 The place left empty in so many a heart? 
 And what benignant recompense can still 
 
 The unremitting pain that, now we part. 
 Reveals the strange great power that upward drew 
 All listening souls as not your art but you? 
 
 For you, unending peace and stirless rest 
 Beneath the stars: there is no more of pain. 
 
 The mighty mother to her healing breast 
 Gathers her great and loyal son again. 
 
 76 
 
THE DEAD LEADER 
 
 For us, keen visions of the earnest face. 
 
 Sharp catchings at the heart when we shall hear 
 
 In evening hours from unconsidered space 
 
 Faint notes of glorious strains that he made clear; 
 
 For us, the brooding memories that throng 
 
 With broken chords the sad unfinished song. 
 
 77 
 
THE LAST DAYS OF THOMAS 
 CHATTERTON 
 
 (Poet and Martyr) 
 
 Fight with thy wings, poor land bird blown 
 
 to sea, 
 Wheeling so wildly in the empty dome! 
 Below thee waits the lean and white-lipped 
 
 foam 
 As snarer for his spoil, impatiently. 
 Here is no pause nor resting place for thee. 
 This way and that the straining eyes may 
 
 roam, 
 They gain no glimpse of thine old harboring 
 
 home. 
 And yet the fluttering wings so weary be ! 
 Nay, Force, the foe implacable that caught 
 The eagle Shelley in his fiery flight, 
 And on the heart of blameless Bruno wrought 
 With fang of serpent and with claw of kite. 
 For all thy song with love and music fraught 
 Holds for thee, too, the icy shroud of night. 
 
 78 
 
SONGS FOR BARBARA 
 
 SEVEN YEARS OLD 
 
 In what forest depth now nestless. 
 Since you left it lorn and guestless, 
 Echoed first those footsteps restless? 
 
 Who first called you queen? 
 You that with that presence airy 
 Mortal seem not but all faery, 
 
 Flown from ways unseen. 
 
 Birds are of that land of dreaming, 
 Clouds draw thence their texture gleaming. 
 You are of their gracious seeming, 
 
 Child amid the flowers; 
 In whose eyes the deep lights glinting 
 Give us strange surmises, hinting 
 
 Sweeter worlds than ours 
 
 When with song and merry chatter 
 Up the stairs your swift feet patter, 
 Flowers of light you seem to scatter 
 More than earth could grow. 
 
 79 
 
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 Were you told in that faint heaven 
 Secrets of the mystic seven 
 Not for us to know? 
 
 Seven Charms for Old Time's Thieving, 
 Seven Guards against Sore Grieving, 
 Seven Magic Ways of Weaving — 
 
 Thus the lore of old: 
 Sevenfold the lure of beauty. 
 Seven-rayed the star of duty 
 
 Gleams with points of gold. 
 
 Seven years their flight have taken. 
 From whose wings the fates have shaken 
 Days a-dark and griefs that waken 
 
 Thoughts beyond all tears; 
 Yet of joy have not bereft us, 
 You and love and light are left us 
 
 Through the changing years. 
 
 Seven times with crimson glory 
 Robin here has told his story, 
 Shaming forth old winter hoary 
 
 With his shivering crew. 
 What when seven more years have drifted 
 Through the veil that hangs unlifted 
 
 Will they mean for you? 
 80 
 
SONGS FOR BARBARA 
 
 Seven times this day above you, 
 Seven times the wonder of you, 
 Show us, passing, how we love you 
 
 Seven times the more. 
 Seven times with deep thanksgiving 
 We have hailed and blessed you living, 
 
 Sent from some bright shore. 
 
 EIGHT YEARS OLD 
 
 If dark were not, if the clouds we see 
 But films or forms of the sun might be, 
 And night came not nor the stars, then we 
 
 Should never love the light. 
 We should not care if the spring were fair 
 Nor with what wreaths she had bound her 
 
 hair, 
 What hoods of green all the hills might wear 
 
 When apple buds grew white. 
 
 If storms were not, if the girdled deep 
 Should dream as you in your softest sleep, 
 Or as the languorous summers steep 
 
 Some lake among the hills. 
 We should not know how the star lamps grow 
 One by one as the day drops low. 
 Nor the peace wherewith their gentle glow 
 
 The souls of watchers fills. 
 8r 
 
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 The gardener frost when the year grows old 
 
 Snips and snips with his fingers cold 
 
 The stems and stalks of the green and gold 
 
 And leaves the woodlands bare. 
 Why, but for him and his reaping keen, 
 When suns come back and the grass comes 
 
 green 
 And buttercups on the hills are seen, 
 
 I think we should not care. 
 
 If skies are grey when old winter sifts 
 The crisping snow into feathery drifts, 
 And scowls, maybe, as his breath uplifts 
 
 The skeins of flying sleet — 
 Why, but for him and his surly ways 
 We should not care for those balmier days, 
 And have no heart for the Junes and Mays 
 
 That are like you, my sweet. 
 
 We should not look for that line of red 
 That shows in buds where the rose is bred, 
 Nor heed the pink if it lift its head 
 
 When now the days grow long; 
 Nor might the tunes in the trees seem clear 
 When after rains in the dawn we hear, 
 While blackbirds chatter and blue wings veer, 
 
 A trill of liquid song. 
 82 
 
SONGS FOR BARBARA 
 
 When winds sweep down on their wheeling 
 
 wings 
 To twine your hair into tangled rings 
 And hum wild tunes of the strangest things 
 
 Among the tossing trees, 
 Some hint or note of the summer seems 
 To dwell that night in our fireside dreams, 
 The willow glistens and the oak leaf gleams 
 
 And sweet are memories. 
 
 And it may be if we knew not grief, 
 Were shadows short and the suns not brief, 
 And joys were more than a flying leaf, 
 
 Not one of us might know 
 (As endless day may not sing of night. 
 Nor dark that never has seen the light 
 May stir with the soul of the day grown white) 
 
 How much to you we owe. 
 
 As purple sunset to purple morn, 
 As blowing wheat to the wavy corn. 
 As new-come rose to the rose unborn, 
 
 So life with pain is kin. 
 Yet pain goes by as the shifting foam, 
 As mists blown through the great sapphire 
 
 dome. 
 In hearts where love having made its home 
 
 Sheds light like yours within. 
 83 
 
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 NINE YEARS OLD 
 
 Though March down leaden skies came scowling, 
 
 Gray and grim and old, 
 With wolf-fanged winds about her howling. 
 
 Winter-bit and cold; 
 Or if fresh suns and flowers were going. 
 
 Not coming, on their way, 
 And these great horns weird lips are blowing 
 
 Gave no hint of May, 
 We should not come with tribute laden 
 
 June to praise and woo. 
 Call her sovereign, rose-wreathed maiden. 
 
 Month with eyes of blue; 
 First of all months, green or hoary, 
 March should still be crown and glory. 
 Still should lead the year's sung story, — 
 
 March that gave us you. 
 
 When hills grow green and maples redden 
 
 Sharp against the sky. 
 And hungry mists once lean and leaden 
 
 Stretch long wings and fly. 
 When all the earth the grey days saddened 
 
 Goes a-tiptoe now. 
 Fresh arbutus that the woods has gladdened 
 
 Bound about her brow, 
 
 84 
 
SONGS FOR BARBARA 
 
 When ear to earth we hear the stirring 
 
 Of buds and things to be. 
 And there's a blackbird's wing a-whirring 
 
 Under the sap-streaked tree, 
 March is the time for you that hghten 
 Hearts as the new winds blow and brighten 
 And with fresh mirth and laughter frighten 
 
 Storm clouds out to sea. 
 
 TEN YEARS OLD 
 
 What music in the wild March weather 
 
 Through the tossing branches blown, 
 Shall we, sitting here together. 
 
 Build of many a tune and tone? 
 For this friend of ours can bellow, 
 Or make longer notes and mellow, 
 As his breath sounds all the trumpets in the elm 
 tree hoar and lone. 
 
 He can play us mighty marches 
 
 Full of bugles and of drums; 
 He can sing of great blue arches 
 After rain-dimmed April comes; 
 He can clash the spears and lances 
 Or drone out the stateliest dances. 
 He can make us think of great gold harps his fly- 
 ing finger strums. 
 
 85 
 
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 He has madrigals of meadows 
 
 Brimming over with the sun, 
 And soft hints of haunting shadows 
 When the hottest days are done: 
 He has fanfares for the flowers, 
 And cadenzas of slant showers, 
 He can pipe all notes of gladness for the springtide 
 new begun. 
 
 We can hear the subtle throbbing 
 
 Of the earth beneath her tread, 
 We can almost hear the sobbing 
 Of old winter for his dead;- 
 March knows all of Robin's singing, 
 The long bright flash of blue-birds winging. 
 All the woodland's wavy woof to be of green and 
 white and red. 
 
 He can sing the keen eyes darkling 
 
 Of a laughing, dancing maid. 
 He can mind me of their sparkling, 
 I can see her brown hair strayed. 
 Blowing, carelessly uplifted. 
 By his breathing softly drifted, 
 She is like the loveliest presto that his violins have 
 played. 
 
 He can almost mark the measure 
 
 (When his richest chords rejoice) 
 86 
 
SONGS FOR BARBARA 
 
 Of the ringing note of pleasure 
 
 Chiming, rhyming in your voice; 
 And he cHnks the silver sweetness 
 Till we think of the completeness 
 Of the love of all your subjects, for indeed we have 
 no choice. 
 
 Light of life and lilt of laughter 
 In the song of wind or bird 
 Had no worth, here or hereafter 
 More than any idle word 
 If the strains that breath of sunlight 
 Bore no gleam nor beam of one light. 
 Even love the soul of all the melodies that man has 
 heard. 
 
 87 
 
PETRARCH'S 104TH SONNET 
 
 No peace, no peace and yet for strife, what ground? 
 
 With fear and hope, with heat and frost pierced 
 through, 
 
 I creep on earth, yet cleave the heavenly blue; 
 And owning naught, am lord the world around. 
 
 Restrained, and half-way from restraint unbound. 
 No captive, I each day a chain renew. 
 Love will not slay, nor let me life pursue, 
 
 Nor have I liberty nor prison found. 
 
 With eyesight, blind; with speech, all dumb again; 
 Craving destruction, crying '' Help ! " in dread. 
 Loathing my heart and loving secretly, 
 I laugh the while I weep for torturing pain. 
 And evil think of the living and the dead: 
 This is my state, my lady — all through thee ! 
 
 88 
 
MADONNA IN THE HIGHWAYS 
 
 One face went by. The dreary beat 
 Of rumbling wheel and restless feet 
 Fell suddenly as hushed and still 
 As brooding air at midnight will 
 When winds find rest in their retreat. 
 You know how in mid- August heat 
 A long wave bows the ripening wheat, — 
 So to a sense of sudden thrill 
 One face went by. 
 
 I know not what of strange and sweet 
 Made all the ways turn gold to greet 
 Her coming, and without our will 
 All voices sink to whispers till 
 Dreamily down the dusty street 
 One face went by. 
 
 89 
 
VIA REGGIO 
 
 O heart of hearts! O seer and king of song! 
 O eagle souled for flight superb and strong! 
 Down this dark roadway to the stirless peace, 
 Where ill things come not and the storm-winds 
 
 cease, 
 Where naught may torture thee nor do thee 
 
 wrong, 
 Faded the wings into the brooding night 
 And left us but thy deathless words for light. 
 
 Way of the King! Uncrowned of drossy gold 
 
 And of no title rooted back in mold, 
 
 Unbailed of hireling hands and grovelling knees. 
 
 But monarch of celestial melodies, 
 
 And lord of love, whose splendid faith could hold, 
 
 As light enwraps a flower at its birth. 
 
 In one embracing bond all sons of earth. 
 
 Way of the King, through gardens of strange 
 
 flowers, 
 By signs of things unseen and hidden powers, 
 90 
 
VIA REGGIO 
 
 Among strange harmonies of ghostly quires, 
 Lightning and shadows, suns and fervent fires, 
 With gifts of darkening days and sleepless hours. 
 And over all the silver star of love 
 That through the tempest beckoned him above. 
 
 91 
 
THE OLD YEARS 
 
 Only a rose she had worn 
 
 Twined in her bright brown hair. 
 She threw it with something of scorn- 
 Only a rose she had worn. 
 Withered, faded, forlorn — 
 
 Why do I keep it with care? — 
 Only a rose she had worn 
 
 Twined in her bright brown hair! 
 
 92 
 
IN MEMORY OF THEODORE THOMAS 
 
 So close the ivory gates he stood before; 
 So from within their leaves a light too keen 
 Or dark too dense subdues the fire he bore. 
 Though by its flame we wanderers here have seen 
 Such things beyond we know not what they mean, 
 Dark, dark, is all now; in the empty place 
 Where once we knew the furrowed kindly face 
 And now sounds not his footfall any more 
 Through blurring eyes the shadows drear we see 
 That in all days to come shall moveless be. 
 
 So strange it seems. Yea, this must be, we know. 
 Yet of some land beyond, in those dead days. 
 So wondrous were the sights he used to show. 
 The stars that shine and wane upon its ways. 
 The heights that lie behind its hollow haze. 
 We did not think that light could cease for him; 
 We could not think of those eyes growing dim, 
 Nor what the world might be if he should go 
 A lonely traveler in that very land 
 Whose veil seemed half-v^ay lifted by his hand. 
 
 93 
 
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 It is as if along a path unknown 
 One trod with faltering footsteps in the dark 
 And felt a stronger hand within his own 
 Leading him on from unseen mark to mark; 
 And lo! the friendly hand is gone, and, hark! 
 Where once was kindly voice and heartening 
 
 word 
 Only these echoes of wild cries are heard, 
 And groping still one feels the chilly stone, 
 And knows that now where'er the way may go, 
 Alone he travels it, unsure and slow. 
 
 The streets, the very streets are not the same 
 As when I threaded them on visions bent 
 And through the changes of dull clamors came 
 Glimpse after glimpse of dreams his music meant; 
 For then by whatso toiling way we went. 
 The spell he wove, a subtle sense of song, 
 Showered a sunlight all the road along, 
 And now, perchance, if one but name his name, 
 As from grey mists the shadows hover down 
 And bleak and dreary shows the sordid town. 
 
 There is a sense of silence in the air, 
 The ceaseless thunders of the streets grow dim. 
 And these faint sounds in this dark chamber bear 
 The scarce heard burden of a mourning hymn 
 That further spreads beyond the daylight's brim. 
 
 94 
 
IN MEMORY OF THEODORE THOMAS 
 
 For sound may not seem real where soul bows 
 
 down 
 Above the fallen head and laurel crown, 
 And knows that in all music wheresoe'er 
 The eager ear shall strive and strive in vain 
 To find among all chords the well-loved strain. 
 
 Master, if with melodies unfailing, 
 
 If in any land of light, 
 Dark was plucked from thy keen eyes, unveiling 
 
 What is hidden from our sight; 
 If the chords that here at best seem broken 
 
 Anywhere completed be. 
 If on some faint strand a word be spoken 
 
 Clearer than we heard from thee, 
 Fain, O master ours, we would have token. 
 
 For this groping fain would see. 
 
 Well it is with thee, we know, our father. 
 
 Who hast won from strife to rest. 
 What were we then, should we wish thee rather 
 
 Toiling brain and wounded breast? 
 In these ways where save by love unlighted. 
 
 Save for song perplexed with pain. 
 Life a day may labor on unbllghted, 
 
 Hope may struggle up unslain. 
 Eyes go seeking for the stars unsighted, 
 
 Hands for things no hand shall gain. 
 95 
 
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 Yet not strange it may be in thy vision. 
 
 Who so oft hast tasted pain, 
 If we stumblers, plagued with indecision. 
 
 Yearn to see thy face again. 
 Who shall turn the bitter edge of sorrow ? 
 
 Who hath comfort, who hath ease? 
 From what dream or legend shall we borrow 
 
 Any help for days like these? 
 From what height of storm forecast a morrow 
 
 Breaking clear on lonely seas? 
 
 Even as the perfect crown was woven 
 
 Fell the hand that grasped it fast; 
 Even as the long-wished way was cloven 
 
 Weary eyes had sleep at last. 
 All thy dreams and days had this for ending, 
 
 All thy ways had this for goal; 
 All the lights from heavenly song descending 
 
 Shine upon an unread scroll, 
 All the airy forms from stars down bending 
 
 Bear this to the baffled soul. 
 
 Love was none so strong it might have shielded 
 
 Even thee from that weird call. 
 Strong was ours and thine and it has yielded 
 
 To the dark that waits for all. 
 Only in a quiet evening hour 
 
 Sometimes when we sit alone, 
 96 
 
IN MEMORY OF THEODORE THOMAS 
 
 Days long past and dear revive and flower 
 
 Into colors once thine own, 
 Into strains of rapture, love, and power, 
 
 Glories of the builded tone. 
 
 Yet wnth solemn peans of thanksgiving, 
 
 Songs half-heard, half -choked and vain, 
 We have mind upon the lights left living, 
 Hope we have for all this pain. 
 Smitten hard and humbled we 
 Utter praise that still we see. 
 Father, though thy face we know not, 
 Though by old worn ways we go not, 
 
 Those that had thy hand for guiding still 
 have thee. 
 
 Nay, on these, on these shall death prevail not, 
 
 Memories, visions, thoughts and dreams, 
 Dreams so clear they come again and pale not, 
 Thought wherein thy presence seems 
 Handfast with us as before. 
 Friend from whom we part no more. 
 Safe amid all Time's mutations 
 Art sustains the soul's creations; 
 
 Age on age is brightened by the fire the artist 
 bore. 
 
 97 
 
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 Naught is lost; for beauty may not perish. 
 
 If one soul, but one alone, 
 Heard those messages of thine we cherish 
 Framed and fragrant all of tone, 
 
 All earth's ways would be more sweet, 
 Flowers be fresher at his feet, 
 Clouds and shadows and the sunlight 
 Take new colors from this one light, 
 
 Love look lovelier in these rays that on its 
 pathway beat. 
 
 All the statues years shall rend asunder, 
 (Dreams divine in stone made true,) 
 All the colors shall the strong suns plunder, 
 All the fanes the sands subdue. 
 Still the subtle springs of art 
 Stir the forces whence upstart 
 All the songs of inspiration. 
 All the raptures of creation. 
 
 Not for forms like these that perish but for 
 man's great heart. 
 
 This thy work, then, as men not despairing, 
 
 Though dismayed on this strange way, 
 We, thy children, hold fast, faintly faring 
 Where in doubt and dark we may. 
 Now no longer at thy side 
 This alone we have for guide, 
 98 
 
IN MEMORY OF THEODORE THOMAS 
 
 Even Beauty the Eternal; 
 
 Whom with psalm and strain supernal 
 
 Thou didst worship while these shadows might 
 for thee abide. 
 
 So striving as all stricken men to find 
 
 If any help may be for hurts like these, 
 
 Weak, we know it, groping, dull and blind. 
 
 The bitter hours we fill with fantasies, 
 
 And somber colors of old memories, 
 
 Telling ourselves that with this thought or dream 
 
 Eased of its smart the wound belike will seem. 
 
 And ever undeceived the unhelped mind 
 
 Knows the lost labor: all may not replace 
 
 The voice, the hand, the furrowed kindly face. 
 
 99 
 
THE GOAL 
 
 After all the gusts and flaws of day, 
 Vain clouds, lost waves, and bursting streams of 
 spray, 
 Note now, the night comes down and gives to 
 
 these 
 The balm and blessing of her dreamless ease 
 And takes from each the heart of pain away. 
 
 The river finds it hath no plaint to play, 
 The grieving harper wind makes cease to lay 
 Its flying fingers on the tinkling trees. 
 After all. 
 
 Who knows, for all the songs and sonnets say, 
 
 That any life with eager feet astray 
 
 Is sweeter than the sunless depths of seas, 
 The calm that lies behind the blown-out breeze, 
 
 The rest and silence of the unstirred clay. 
 After all? 
 
 100 
 
THE RIVIERA 
 
 (Rondeau Redouble) 
 
 By shimmering seas the Hghts were blue, 
 The air was shot with bursting spray, 
 
 A low wind hummed the cypress through; 
 All songs were sweet that perfect day. 
 
 I mind just how the shadows lay, 
 What colors on the hills they drew, 
 
 And how beyond the lighthouse grey 
 
 By shimmering seas the lights were blue. 
 
 On that long strand where the seagulls flew 
 How clear the vista stretched away! 
 
 Save where, (a scarf of snowy hue,) 
 The air was shot with bursting spray. 
 
 The balmy breath of a northern May 
 Across the reddening garden grew; 
 
 With smells as of new northern hay 
 
 A low wind hummed the cypress through. 
 
 lOI 
 
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 I know, I know — our words were few, 
 
 What words shall man and woman say- 
 When singing thoughts are fine and true? 
 All songs were sweet that perfect day. 
 
 And now as down these scenes I stray 
 Each sight tears at my wound anew ; 
 
 The old gloom claims me for its prey, 
 Lacking the sunlight — which was you — 
 By shimmering seas! 
 
 102 
 
SEA DREAMS 
 
 (Rondelets) 
 
 How sings the sea? 
 By glittering leagues and leagues of blue 
 
 How sings the sea? 
 For many songs and moods hath she, 
 Loud in the rocks she thunders through, 
 Soft to the winds her wavelets woo. 
 
 How sings the sea! 
 
 Ye would have gold. 
 And yet ye heed the morning not. 
 
 Ye would have gold? 
 Then what is all this wealth untold 
 The noon across the sea hath shot? 
 Gather, if ere ye be forgot 
 
 Ye would have gold. 
 
 " Love have I none," 
 I said, and steadfast went my way. 
 
 Love have I none? 
 How came it then that as the sun 
 Decked the blue sea in gold array 
 I searched and found no heart to say, 
 
 Love have I none? 
 103 
 
SEA TRIOLETS 
 
 Indian Ocean 
 
 Blue satin, white lace, 
 She hath for her dower. 
 
 What is meet for her face? 
 
 Blue satin, white lace 
 
 And a sobering trace 
 Of purple for power. 
 
 Blue satin, white lace 
 She hath for her dower. 
 
 With the dawn she awakes. 
 
 From the lure of her trances. 
 When the long shadow breaks 
 With the dawn, she awakes 
 And the first sunbeam makes 
 
 The tune of her dances. 
 With the dawn she awakes 
 
 From the lure of her trances. 
 
 Guard well your eyes — 
 
 She hath snares for your heart ! 
 When the blue ripples rise 
 Guard well your eyes! 
 104 
 
SEA TRIOLETS 
 
 When the sea sparkle flies 
 And the long rollers start 
 
 She hath charms for your eyes 
 She hath snares for your heart. 
 
 But the gems she can wear 
 
 When she's clothed by the sun! 
 There is naught worth your care 
 But the gems she can wear 
 On her breast, in her hair. 
 Set in gold finely spun — 
 But the gems she can wear 
 
 When she's clothed by the sun! 
 
 105 
 
FROM SUEZ TO ADEN 
 
 (Kyrielle) 
 
 Here in the east the yellow light 
 Parts the reluctant hands of night 
 And wakes with weirdest melody 
 The fair fierce soul men call The Sea. 
 
 The tune is low, the notes are faint, 
 Till Dawn, released from all restraint, 
 Touches her brow and sets her free, 
 The fair fierce soul men call The Sea. 
 
 Then wild winds rise to scatter o'er 
 With liberal gems the crinkled floor, 
 And deck with snowy tracery 
 The fair fierce soul men call The Sea. 
 
 And from long reaches at the stars 
 And plunging towards the crim.son bars, 
 Content in her white arms to be, 
 (The fair fierce soul men call The Sea) 
 
 The ship comes sailing, fleet and strong, 
 Turning the tinkling sprays to song; 
 io6 
 
FROM SUEZ TO ADEN 
 
 And she replies in notes of glee, 
 
 The fair fierce soul men call The Sea. 
 
 And other voices she hath none, 
 Save that low hymnal to the sun, 
 Whose last look seeks regretfully 
 The fair fierce soul men call The Sea. 
 
 At eve I mean, when from the west 
 The long light slants across her breast, 
 And crowned with gold and fire is she, 
 The fair fierce soul men call The Sea. 
 
 Till all her lovers start and feel 
 Again her thraldom on them steal, 
 And bow and worship inwardly 
 The fair fierce soul men call The Sea. 
 
 My goddess of the gold and blue, 
 What arid space my thought cleaves through 
 To find and cling about thy knee. 
 The fair fierce soul men call The Sea! 
 
 107 
 
THE SOUTHEAST TRADES 
 
 (Sicilian Octave) 
 
 The mightest builders of the sky, and best, 
 
 Whose tireless toil rears dazzling dome on dome, 
 White pinnacles whereon the stars make nest, 
 
 Great glittering halls whence errant planets roam. 
 These hands that rear aloft the roller's crest 
 
 And save the seagull's sandy strip of home, 
 Are hands that braid about the ocean's breast 
 
 The long bright ribandry of driven foam. 
 
 io8 
 
ANGAUR ISLAND 
 
 (Concerto) 
 
 Allegro 
 
 Green on green she hath for her attire, 
 
 Green wherein strange passions glow, 
 
 Green whose shifting depths seem hquid fire, 
 
 Green where shadows come and go; 
 
 Green Hke that great gem, the world's desire, 
 
 Wanton Delhi used to show. 
 
 Throat to little feet 
 
 Green hath robed my sweet. 
 
 Leaving bare the twining hair the lips of trade 
 
 winds know. 
 
 Something sparkles in her hair 
 
 All the lingering light; 
 Something on her brow left bare 
 
 Glitters sharp and bright: 
 That is sea-spray shining where 
 Sunbeams show it white. 
 
 Spray for jewels, green for gown, 
 Girdled with the sea-sand brown, 
 Wrapped in dream on dream lies she. 
 Hearing but the drowsy sea. 
 109 
 
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 Here she lies as one half-tranced and listening, 
 
 All her soul intent on song, 
 Where the blue-based breakers comb, and, gHs- 
 tening, 
 Fall the shelving sand along, 
 Now with chords as for their birth or christen- 
 ing, 
 Now with airy notes and strong. 
 Harp and horn and bell — 
 F'aint and clear they swell, 
 Till with beat of eager feet the throbbing measures 
 throng. 
 
 Wind, O wind, whose wings flash over 
 Leagues and leagues of curling sea. 
 
 Let your flight here pause and hover, 
 Let your wings here folded be. 
 
 Heart have you to be her lover. 
 Brightest of the isles is she. 
 
 Broadly flung along the beach, and foaming 
 Smoothly white and rounded over rocks. 
 Hark! when all the deeper notes cease throbbing 
 Seaward sliding scurf takes up the song. 
 Low and long and droning on the pebbles 
 Chords they have like conches lightly blown: 
 Chords of clouds reflected in their shallows. 
 White, save where the palm tree leaning over, 
 Belike to listen to the lisping sound, 
 no 
 
ANGAUR ISLAND 
 
 Cuts across with image green and darkling, 
 All the shadows of the pools beneath. 
 Chords of clouds and chords of dreary driftings 
 Piped one moment while the breakers pause : 
 Then the dark-souled water upward climbing 
 Rings on wave- worn reefs its solemn joy. 
 
 Then returns the sea's triumphal thunder. 
 
 Mellow made in hollow caves, 
 Praising all the morning's wealth of wonder 
 
 When with fire it clothes the waves; 
 Dawn on dawn above, and deep thereunder 
 Twilight as of minster naves. 
 Radiant still it grows 
 As morning overflows 
 The purple bars and blinds the stars with light 
 that slays and saves. 
 
 Saves the world from all things dark and evil. 
 Slays about the world the mists of night. 
 Free, with pinions plumed by dawn with glory, 
 Hither comes the wind and wanders wide; 
 Woodlands seem to glow beneath his passing, 
 Palms and rushes to respond in tune. 
 Not alone with song the forests hail him; 
 Light and shade and cloud have music too. 
 Sweet are strains of wind-stirred palm or pine- 
 tree; 
 
 III 
 
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 Sweeter still the strains that no man hears 
 
 Save with soul within that bends and hearkens 
 
 While the choirs celestial recite 
 
 Secrets of the wind and shore and billow. 
 
 Secret singing as of flower and leaf, 
 
 Sun and shadow, mere and sleeping moonlight. 
 
 Star above and mother earth beneath. 
 
 Shingly shoals the same refrain have fluted. 
 
 Palm trees crooned aloud her praise. 
 Cliffs and crags through clarions half -muted, 
 
 Chanted of her stainless days; 
 Through the flying spray the sun has luted 
 Hints and symbols of her ways; 
 Now, like pipe of oat, 
 Clean and slight of note, 
 The spring that slips past rocky lips takes up the 
 theme and plays: 
 
 Wind, oh wind, whose heart unresting 
 Drives thee on thy glimmering path. 
 
 Tidal stream and billow breasting. 
 Swaying all to thine own wrath. 
 
 Here are bowers for thy nesting. 
 Here some ease thy spirit hath. 
 
 112 
 
16° SOUTH LATITUDE 
 
 (Virelai Nouveau) 
 
 Blue upon blue the wide world knows, 
 But whence is the blue that the trade wind 
 blows ? 
 
 Blue in old nooks of the garden close. 
 Bluebell and gentian the garden grows, 
 Blue in the flag-flower, streaked with white. 
 Blue where the sky of Italy glows — 
 Blue upon blue the wide world knows. 
 
 The tints are strong. If there grew a rose 
 By the long sea-sand or the island bright. 
 Deeper and redder 't would be than those 
 To the northern sun my garden shows. 
 Steeped all day in this dazzling light. 
 Where suns have no clouds and flowers no 
 
 foes. 
 What should it lack of strong and bright ? 
 But whence is the blue that the trade wind 
 
 blows ? 
 
 113 
 
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 It is here, I think, that some great god stows 
 The store of blue that overflows 
 From a May-time morning, viewed aright. 
 And the blue of petals the west wind sows — 
 Blue upon blue the wide world knows. 
 
 There's a blue on the edge of Alpine snows, 
 And a blue that the tardy evening strows 
 Across the starlit road of night 
 Deeper than gems or flowers disclose. 
 But whence is the blue that the trade wind 
 blows ? 
 
 Another blue in the woodland goes, 
 Keen and wonderful, swift and slight; 
 Belike the northern bluebird owes 
 To a blue like this its glittering flight. 
 Blue upon blue the wide world knows, 
 But whence is the blue that the trade wind 
 blows ? 
 
 114 
 
AMONG THE ISLANDS 
 
 I know now where you go, you sun, 
 When in our woods the Hght is slant, 
 
 And rough with ice the rivers run, 
 And nights are full and days are scant. 
 The glittering road whereon you go 
 
 Set with all tints from bright to dun 
 Past cloudy islet peaks aglow 
 And royal stately palms a-row, 
 I know, you sun, I know. 
 
 By day on sapphire falls your tread 
 Down ways between bright purple bars; 
 
 By night your darkly azured bed 
 
 Is braided thick with pearls and stars; 
 And all your dimly lighted rooms, 
 
 With argent-studded satin spread, 
 Are redolent of spicy glooms. 
 Of sandal, myrrh, and the spent fumes 
 Of lotus lily blooms. 
 
 I know now why you linger long 
 
 When boughs show sharp against the blue, 
 
 115 
 
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 And down the bare woods piping strong 
 March routs the leaves and calls for you; 
 For then on yellow sands you lie 
 
 And hear the thunderous throb and song 
 Of surfs on coral reefs piled high, 
 And in the still lagoons you eye 
 The soft and stainless sky. 
 
 I know the sorcery that spells 
 
 You captive when slant shafts of rain 
 
 Have overfilled the first bluebells 
 And coldly streaked the window pane. 
 For then you drift with gleaming sail 
 
 Across these long and languorous swells 
 To watch the shadows dark or pale 
 That down the island mountains trail 
 When lingering clouds prevail. 
 
 Through whirling snow and windy drift 
 If up this way you sometimes march 
 
 Your mist-veiled face seems scarce uplift 
 Above our southward standing larch. 
 Our frosty hymns you will not hear, 
 
 Nor make through Christmas storms a rift 
 Because all tunes of all the year 
 The trade wind in the palm blows clear 
 For but your ravished ear. 
 
 ii6 
 
AMONG THE ISLANDS 
 
 And he that wanders on your way 
 
 And sails and drifts and dreams with you, 
 
 And learns what things the long leaves say, 
 What lights live in the deepest blue 
 That heaves upon the ocean's breast — 
 
 Drinks mandragora. Day on day 
 By passions and by dreams possest 
 Henceforth he knows not any rest 
 But yearns and burns unblest. 
 
 Until once more by curving beaches 
 He feels the trade wind touch his hair; 
 
 Until along the inlet reaches 
 
 He breathes the blossom-heavy air. 
 
 Sky and wind and cloud and dreaming — 
 
 Ah, the lore the free life teaches ! 
 
 True wonders of the waters gleaming, 
 And wonders of the strange lights beaming 
 Beyond the wild world's deeming! 
 
 117 
 
IT WAS FOR THIS 
 
 While all these faces stream the street along, 
 Forth driven by this rebel in my breast, 
 
 A drifting dreamer in the saner throng, 
 These days on days I fare in futile quest, 
 Betossed between true grief and cynic jest; 
 For wisdom knows this comes not back to me. 
 And vain hope smiles and whispers treasonably; 
 
 And so, half chilly wise, half foolish fire, 
 I tread the ways where many faces be. 
 
 But never comes the face that I desire. 
 
 Two voices strive to lure me as with song. 
 
 And one will tell me all this pain is best 
 Since she and I to alien worlds belong, 
 
 Until I say, " Cease, soul, and be at rest," 
 
 Convinced and humbled by the high behest . . . 
 
 Lo, now, how swift all wiser counsels flee! 
 
 For let that other voice but whisper, '' She ! " 
 And forth I go to watch until I tire 
 
 The faces that flow by incessantly. 
 But never comes the face that I desire. 
 
 And some are beautiful, and some are strong; 
 
 And often, half -dismayed, I turn me lest 
 
 ii8 
 
IT WAS FOR THIS 
 
 Keen eyes perceive me bound by such a thong 
 And mock the dream wherewith I go obsessed. 
 Then turn again and think how she was dressed 
 That day of blue and gold, and think I see 
 Far off a glimmer of that witchery; 
 
 And faring so in tangled ways and dire 
 At bitter day's end have just this for fee — 
 
 *' But never comes the face that I desire." 
 
 Mock on, ye wise men — weak as straws are we. 
 As weak as wind-tossed twigs from any tree, 
 
 Mock as I mourn above a burnt-out pyre. 
 But pray that from this torment ye go free — 
 
 " But never comes the face that I desire.'* 
 
 119 
 
NOTES 
 
 Page 1 8. — India: Sonata. Four years ago the pres- 
 ent writer ventured to submit two experiments in this 
 form, and on the kind reception they had he places some 
 share of responsibiHty for this renewed attempt. The 
 hope is entertained that in each of the movements 
 the successive phases of the musical patterns are 
 sufficiently indicated, but if this be not so the follow- 
 ing analysis may be tolerated. 
 
 The first movement (chiefly in iambic tetrameter, 
 which seems to be the normal moderately fast foot) 
 begins with a pentameter statement of the principal 
 theme, in four lines. The succeeding development 
 group of twenty-four lines is based on the chief vowel 
 sounds of the principal theme. An episode of six 
 lines leads after a brief introduction to the second 
 theme, " I am not fair," etc. The material of the 
 second theme is worked over in the next twenty-seven 
 lines of development, followed by a second episode 
 and the restatement of the principal theme, further 
 development, a restatement of the second theme and 
 a finale of twenty-four lines. 
 
 The second movement in trochaics, the slowest Eng- 
 lish foot, is similarly constructed, except that blank 
 verse is used in the development groups. Instead of 
 the scherzo in the third movement there is an attempt 
 to utilize the minuet: trio: minuet: trio form exempli- 
 
 121 
 
NOTES 
 
 fied by Schumann, and the last movement is the tra- 
 ditional rondeau, the original source of the rondo of 
 music. 
 
 No adequate excuse exists for repeating in defense 
 of this form what was said for it four years ago. The 
 happy achievements of Mr. Dole and others, and the 
 wider recognition of the infallible deductions of Sid- 
 ney Lanier, have doubtless spread conviction of the 
 essential and basic unity of poetry and music, and 
 poetry seems, therefore, entitled to avail itself of any 
 practicable musical form'. 
 
 Page 58. — The End of the Concordat. We should 
 not fail to notice that the present advancing wave of 
 democracy, which has destroyed absolutism in Persia 
 and Turkey and threatens it in India and elsewhere, 
 started where such waves always start. After all, 
 France remains our Lady of Hope. 
 
 Page 64. — Marie Spirodonova. The services and 
 martyrdom of this splendid woman have been vividly 
 described by Leroy Scott. She was a school-teacher in 
 rural Russia. The governor of her district was one of 
 the most frightful beasts that ever lived, so wantonly 
 and fiendishly cruel that he managed to make himself 
 conspicuous even in the crimson history of Russian 
 cruelty. Miss Spirodonova brooded upon the wrongs 
 of the people until she became convinced that so ter- 
 rible a monster had no right to live, and since no 
 one else dared to rid earth of him she must herself 
 be his executioner. She shot him dead at the railroad 
 station as he was waiting for a train. Russian 
 tyranny marked her to be an example to all others 
 
 122 
 
NOTES 
 
 that might be moved to revolt. She was condemned 
 not to death but to torture. Much that she endured 
 is not to be printed, but of the mentionable punish- 
 ments inflicted upon her, I may remind you that she 
 was repeatedly beaten and kicked into insensibility, 
 she was lashed with whips, she was paraded naked 
 before groups of jeering creatures that by some 
 verbal extravagance were called men, her guards used 
 to amuse themselves by throwing her on the floor of 
 her cell and crushing her face under their boot-heels, 
 army officers were wont to strip her and with their 
 lighted cigar and cigarette ends burn patterns in her 
 flesh. After months of daily torments such as these, 
 she was immured in one of the worst convict camps 
 in Siberia. All of these things actually happened in 
 the Twentieth Century. Yet I have heard Americans 
 wonder at the violence of the Russian revolutionists, 
 and speak of friendship for the savages that conduct 
 the Russian Government. 
 
 Page 70. — Captains of Industry. The lines on 
 which this glose is founded are from the too brief 
 proem of Mr. Swinburne's " Songs of Two Nations." 
 
 I saw the double-featured 'statue stand 
 Of Memnon or of Janus, half with night 
 Veiled, and fast bound with iron ; half with light 
 
 Crowned, holding all men's future in his hand. 
 
 And all the old westward face of time grown grey 
 Was writ with cursing and inscribed for death: 
 But on the face that met the morning's breath 
 
 Fear died of hope as darkness dies of day. 
 123 
 
NOTES 
 
 To have seemed to take any liberties with any 
 words of the greatest of prophets in the human cause 
 requires an apology here tendered with unfeigned 
 humility. Also I do most profoundly regret that the 
 experiment in this rare, powerful, and supple form is 
 no worthier, but beyond doubt it will have facile use in 
 abler hands. 
 
 Page 75. — The Dead Leader. Mr. Thomas, the 
 father of the grand orchestra in America, whose forty 
 years of tireless labor in the sacred cause of music 
 brought delight and spiritual aspiration to millions, and 
 whose personal character was as lofty as his aims, cher- 
 ished as a chief object of his life the plan to found in 
 America an endowed and permanent orchestra, estab- 
 lished for the study and development of orchestral art ; 
 and died just as he saw the realization of his dream. 
 
 Page 90. — Via Reggio. The appreciative and sym- 
 pathetic Italians have erected, at their own motion, a 
 monument near the spot where Shelley's body came 
 ashore. With the exception of the memorial bestowed 
 upon University College by Lady Anne Shelley, one 
 looks in vain in Shelley's own country for a similar 
 tribute to the " supernal son of song." 
 
 Page 109. — Angaur Island. You pass it on the star- 
 board side bound up from Friedrichwilhelmshafen to 
 Manila. But among the innumerable and bewildering 
 jewels that are so lavishly scattered over the ocean 
 floor in the earthly paradise of the South Seas, per- 
 haps it is unfair to particularize. 
 
 124 
 
WV 13 IW 
 
 i^uV 13,1909 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 jlilililillilllliill 
 
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