\ PS 3525 .A25 P7 1914 Copy 2 HE PRESENT HOUR PERCY MACKAYE r may ess a riirc7 la tj.x ^ji os;^eu iiisiaeiTie coveF. For each book kept over time a fine of ten cents a week will be imposed. Pen or pencil marks, or leaf-corners turn- ed down will be subject to a fine. Persons taking books will be held respon- sible for their loss or injury. No book is to be lent out of the family of the borrower. Quiet and orderly deportment in the Li- brary room is enjoined. I B^ IPerc^ /IDaclRa^e The Canterbury Pilgrims. A Comedy. Jeanne d'Arc. A Tragedy. Sappho and Phaon. A Tragedy. Penris the Wolf. A Tragedy. A Garland to Sylvia. A Dramatic JReverie. The Scarecrow. A Tragedy of the Ludicrous. Yankjee Fantasies. Five One-Act Plays. Mater. An American Study in Comedy. Anti-Matrimony. A Satirical Comedy. To-MoRROw. A Play in Three Acts. A Thousand Years Ago. A Bomance of the Orient. Sanctuary. A Bird Masque. Saint Louis. A Civic Masque. The Sistine Eve, and Other Poems. Lincoln. A Centenary Ode. Uriel, and Other Poems. The Present Hour. A Book of Poems. The Playhouse and the Play. Essays, The Civic Theatre. Bt all :©ooft0ellcr0 THE PRESENT HOUR •Th^>^o THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK . BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., Limited LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. TORONTO From a photograph by Arnold Genthe. THE PRESENT HOUR a 13006 of ^oetnjs BY PERCY MACKAYE THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1914 All rights reserved Copyright, 1914, By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped. Published November, 1914. J. S. Cashing Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. REPLACEMOT COPY. ^7- THE VALIANT DEFENDERS OF CIVILIZATION THE BELGIANS PREFACE Posterity alone can correctly estimate and appor- tion the right and wrong of the great war in Europe. At the present hour, we who look on from neutral America can but judge the war's issues by the facts and arguments laid before us by the press and spokes- men of all parties in the conflict. By such evidence, the sympathies of our citizens, by overwhelming majority, are with the cause of the Allies. In thus sympathizing with the Allies, we do so, I believe, whole-heartedly in the faith (based on the declared policy of English leaders) that they are waging against militarism a fight to lessen world armament and the political oppression of small nar tions. If they win and the stipulations of peace should prove otherwise, our revulsion of feeling would surely be commensurate. PREFACE It is conceivable, though hardly probable, that future evidence may alter our judgment of the bel- ligerents. Our reasons remain open to conviction. But no future contingencies can, or should, stay us now from taking thought and expressing it. In view of the world-misery involved by the war, our reaction, while dispassionate, cannot possibly be unimpassioned. Not to feel its awful issues passionately would be uncivilized. Confronted by moral and social issues of a conflict the most poignant in history, it becomes for us — as neutrals, who alone may help to form untainted world- opinion — a pressing duty and privilege to express ourselves. PERCY MACKAYE. Cornish, New Hampshire, October, 1914. CONTENTS I. WAK PAOB Fight : The Tale of a Gunner 3 The Conflict : Six Sonnets 29 1. To William Watson in England .... 29 2. American Neutrality 30 3. Peace 31 4. Wilson 32 6. Kruppism 33 6. The Real Germany 34 The Lads of Liege 35 Carnage : Six Sonnets 38 1. Doubt 38 2. The Great Negation 39 3. Louvain 40 4. Rheims 41 5. Kultur 42 6. Destiny 43 The Muffled Drums 44 Antwerp 46 Magna Carta 47 Men of Canada 50 France 62 Hauptmann 53 Nietzsche 54 The Child-Dancers 65 xi xii CONTENTS PAGB Battlefields 67 In Memoriam ......... 58 A Prayer of the Peoples 60 II. PEACE Panama Hymn 65 goethals 68 A Child at the Wicket 71 Hymn for Equal Suffrage 74 Lexington 76 School 81 The Player 89 To Josephine Preston Peabody 92 Prologue and Epilogue to a Bird Masque . . 94 The Song Sparrow ........ 99 To AN Upland Plover 101 Rain Revery 103 The Heart in the Jar 106 NOTES 115 THE PRESENT HOUR I WAR FIGHT The Tale of a Gunner ^ I Jock bit his mittens off and blew his thumbs ; He scraped the fresh sleet from the frozen sign : Men Wanted — Volunteers. Like gusts of brine He whiffed deliriums Of sound — the droning roar of rolling rolling drums And shrilling fifes, like needles in his spine, And drank, blood-bright from sunrise and wild shore. The wine of war. 1 In commemoration of the last naval battle between English- speaking peoples. See note at end of volume, 3 THE PRESENT HOUR With ears and eyes he drank and dizzy brain Till all the snow danced red. The little shacks That lined the road of muffled hackmatacks Were roofed with the red stain. Which spread in reeling rings on icy-blue Champlain And splotched the sky like daubs of sealing-wax, That darkened when he winked, and when he stared Caught fire and flared. Men Wanted — Volunteers ! The village street, Topped by the slouching store and slim flagpole. Loomed grand as Rome to his expanding soul ; Grandly the rhythmic beat Of feet in file and flags and fifes and filing feet. The roar of brass and unremitting roll Of drums and drums bewitched his boyish mood — Till he hallooed. His strident echo stung the lake's wild dawn And startled him from dreams. Jock rammed his cap FIGHT And rubbed a numb ear with the furry flap, Then bolted like a faun, Bounding through shin-deep sleigh-ruts in his shaggy brawn. Blowing white frost-wreaths from red mouth agap Till, in a gabled porch beyond the store, He burst the door: "Mother!" he panted. "Hush! Your Pa ain't up; He's worser since this storm. What's struck ye so ? " "It's volunteers!" The old dame stammered "Oh!" And stopped, and stirred her sup Of morning tea, and stared down in the trembling cup. "They're musterin' on the common now." "I know" She nodded feebly; then with sharp surmise She raised her eyes : She raised her eyes, and poured their light on him Who towered glowing there — bright lips apart. 6 THE PRESENT HOUR Cap off, and brown hair towsled. With quick smart She felt the room turn dim And seemed she heard, far off, a sound of cherubim Soothing the sudden pain about her heart. — How many a lonely hour of after-woe She saw him so I "Jock!" And once more the white lips murmured "Jock!" Her fingers slipped ; the spilling teacup fell And shattered, tinkling — but broke not the spell. His heart began to knock, Jangling the hollow rhythm of the ticking clock. "Mother, it's fight, and men are wanted!" "Well, Ah well, it's men may kill us women's joys. It's men — not boys ! " "I'm seventeen! I guess that seventeen — " " My little Jock ! " " Little ! I'm six-foot-one. FIGHT (Scorn twitched his lip) You saw me, how I skun The town last Halloween At wrasthn'." (Now the mother shifted tack.) " But Jean ? You won't be leavin' Jean?'' "I guess a gun Won't rattle her^ He laughed, and turned his head. His face grew red. "But if it doos — a gal don't understand: It's fight!" "Jock boy, your Pa can't last much more, And who's to mind the stock — to milk and chore ? " Jock frowned and gnawed his hand. "Mother, it's mm must mind the stock — our own born land. And lick the invaders." Slowly in the door Stubbed the old worn-out man. "Woman, let be! It's liberty: 8 THE PRESENT HOUR "It's struck him like fork-lightnin' in a pine. I felt it, too, like that in Seventy-six; And now, if 'twa'n't for ereepin' pains and cricks And this one leg o' mine, I'd holler young Jerusalem like him, and jine The fight; but fight don't come from burnt-out wicks; It comes from fire." "Mebbe," she said, "it comes From fifes and drums." "Dad, all the boys are down from the back hills. The common's cacklin' like hell's cocks and hens; There's swords and muskets stacked in the cow pens And knapsacks in the mills; They say at Isle aux Noix redcoats are holding drills. And we're to build a big fleet at Vergennes. Dad, can't I go ? " "I reckon you 're a man : Of course you can. FIGHT 9 "I'll do the chores to home, you do 'em tharl" "Dad!" — "Lad!'' The men gripped hands and gazed upon The mother, when the door flew wide : There shone A young face like a star, A gleam of bitter-sweet 'gainst snowy islands far, A freshness, like the scent of cinnamon, Tingeing the air with ardor and bright sheen. Jock faltered: "Jean!" "Jock, don't you hear the drums ? I dreamed all night I heard 'em, and they woke me in black dark. Quick, ain't you comin'? Can't you hear 'em? Hark! The men-folks are to fight. I wish I was a man!" Jock felt his throat clutch tight. " Men-folks ! " It lit his spirit like a spark Flashing the pent gunpowder of his pride. " Come on ! " he cried. 10 THE PRESENT HOUR *' Here — wait ! " The old man stumped to the back wall And handed down his musket. "You'll want this; And mind what game you're after, and don't miss. Goodbye: I guess that's all For now. Come back and get your duds." Jock, looming tall Beside his glowing sweetheart, stooped to kiss The little shrunken mother. Tiptoe she rose And clutched him — close. In both her twisted hands she held his head Clutched in the wild remembrance of dim years — A baby head, suckling, half dewed with tears; A tired boy abed By candlelight ; a laughing face beside the red Log-fire ; a shock of curls beneath her shears — The bright hair falling. Ah, she tried to smother Her wild thoughts. — " Mother FIGHT 11 "Mother!" he stuttered. "Baby Jock!" she moaned And looked far in his eyes. — And he was gone. The porch door banged. Out in the blood-bright dawn All that she once had owned — Her heart's proud empire — passed, her life's dream sank unthroned. With hands still reached, she stood there staring, wan. "Hark, woman!" said the bowed old man, "What's tolling?" Drums — drums were rolling. n Shy wings flashed in the orchard, glitter, glitter; Blue wings bloomed soft through blossom-colored leaves. And Phoebe! Phoebe! whistled from gray eaves 12 THE PRESENT HOUR Through water-shine and twitter And spurt of flamey green. All bane of earth and bitter Took life and tasted sweet at the glad reprieves Of Spring, save only in an old dame's heart That grieved apart. Crook-back and small, she poled the big wellsweep : Creak went the pole; the bucket came up brim- ming. On the bright water lay a cricket swimming Whose brown legs tried to leap But, draggling, twitched and foundered in the circling deep. The old dame gasped; her thin hand snatched him, skimming. " Dear Lord, he's drowned ! " she mumbled with dry lips: "The ships! the ships I" FIGHT 13 Gently she laid him in the sun and dried The little dripping body. Suddenly Rose-red gleamed through the budding apple-tree And "Look! a letter !'' cried A laughing voice, "and lots of news for us inside!'* "How's that, Jean? News from Jock! Where — where is he?" "Down in Vergennes — the shipyards." "Ships I Ah, no! It can't be so." "He's goin' to fight with guns and be a tar. See here : he's wrote himself. The post was late. He couldn't write before. The ship is great I She's built, from keel to spar. And called the Saratoga; and Jock's got a scar Already-" "Scar?" the mother quavered. "Wait," Jean rippled, "let me read." "Quick, then, my dear. He'll want to hear — 14 THE PRESENT HOUR "Jockos Pa: I guess we'll find him in the yard. He ain't scarce creepin' round these days, poor Dan ! " She gripped Jean's arm and stumbled as they ran. And stopped once, breathing hard. Around them chimney-swallows skimmed the sheep- cropped sward And yellow hornets hummed. — The sick old man Stirred at their steps, and muttered from deep muse : "Well, Ma: what news?" " From Jockie — there's a letter ! " In his chair The bowed form sat bolt upright. " What's he say ? " "He's wrote to Jean. I guess it's boys their way To think old folks don't care For letters." "Girl, read out." Jean smoothed her wilding hair And sat beside them. Out of the blue day A golden robin called; across the road A heifer lowed; FIGHT 15 And old ears listened while youth read: "'Friend Jean, Vergennes : here's where we've played a Yankee trick. I'm layin' in my bunk by Otter Crick And scribblin' you this mean Scrawl for to tell the news — what-all I've heerd and seen : Jennie, we've built a ship, and built her slick — A swan ! — a seven hundred forty tonner, And I'm first gunner. " * You ought to seen us launch her t'other day I Tell Dad we've christened her for a fight of hisn He fought at Saratoga. Now just listen ! She's twice as big, folks say. As Perry's ship that took the prize at Put-in Bay; Yet forty days ago, hull, masts and mizzen. The whole of her was growin', live and limber. In God's green timber. 16 THE PRESENT HOUR " ' I helped to fell her main-mast back in March. The woods was snowed knee-deep. She was a won- der: A straight white pine. She fell like roarin' thunder And left a blue-sky arch Above her, bustin' all to kindlin's a tall larch. — Mebbe the scart jack-rabbits skun from under! Us boys hoorayed, and me and every noodle Yelled Yankee-Doodle! "'My, how we haw'd and gee'd the big ox-sledges Haulin* her long trunk through the hemlock dells, A-bellerin' to the tinkle-tankle bells, And blunted our ax edges Hackin* new roads of ice 'longside the rocky ledges. We stalled her twice, but gave the oxen spells And yanked her through at last on the home-clearin*. — Lord, wa'n't we cheerin'! FIGHT 17 "'Since then I've seen her born, as you might say: Born out of fire and water and men's sweatin', Blast-furnace rairin' and red anvils frettin* And sawmills, night and day, Screech-owlin' like 'twas Satan's nimhouse run away Smellin' of tar and pitch. But I'm forgettin' The man that's primed her guns and paid her score : The -Commodore. "'Macdonough — he's her master, and she knows His voice, like he was talkin' to his hound. There ain't a man of her but ruther'd drownd Than tread upon his toes; And yet with his red cheeks and twinklin' eyes, a rose Ain't friendlier than his looks be. When he's round. He makes you feel like you're a gentleman American. "'But I must tell you how we're hidin' here. This Otter Crick is like a crook-neck jug 18 THE PRESENT HOUR And we're inside. The redcoats want to plug The mouth, and cork our beer; So last week Downie sailed his British lake-fleet near To fill our channel, but us boys had dug Big shore intrenchments, and our ^batteries Stung 'em like bees "*Till they skedaddled whimperin* up the lake; But while the shots was flyin', in the scrimmage, I caught a ball that scotched my livin' image. — Now Jean, for Sam Hill's sake. Don't let-on this to Mother, for you know she'd make A deary-me-in' that would last a grim age. 'Tain't much, but when a feller goes to war What's he go for " ' If 'tain't to fight, and take his" chances ? ' " Jean Stopped and looked down. The mother did not speak. "Go on," said the old man. Flush tinged her cheek. "Truly I didn't mean — FIGHT 19 There ain't much more. He says: 'Goodbye now, little queen; We're due to sail for Plattsburgh this day week. Meantime I'm hopin' hard and takin' stock. Your obedient — Jock.' " The girl's voice ceased in silence. Glitter, glitter, The shy wings flashed through blossom-colored leaves, And Phoebe! Phoebe! whistled from gray eaves Through water-shine and twitter And spurt of flamey green. But bane of thought is bitter. The mother's heart spurned May's sweet make- believes, For there, through falling masts and gaunt ships looming. Guns — guns were booming. 20 THE PRESENT HOUR III Plattsburgh — and windless beauty on the bay ; Autumnal morning and the sun at seven : Southward a wedge of wild ducks in the heaven Dwindles, and far away • Dim mountains watch the lake, where lurking for their prey Lie, with their muzzled thunders and pent levin. The warships — Eagle, Preble, Saratoga, Ticonderoga. And now a little wind from the northwest Flutters the trembling blue with snowy flecks. A gunner, on Macdonough's silent decks. Peers from his cannon's rest. Staring beyond the low north headland. Crest on crest Behind green spruce-tops, soft as wildfowls' necks. Glide the bright spars and masts and whitened wales Of bellying sails. FIGHT 21 Rounding, the British lake-birds loom in view Ruffling their wings in silvery arrogance : Chubb, Linnet, Finch, and lordly Confiance Leading with Downie's crew The line. — With long booms swung to starboard they heave to, Whistling their flock of galleys who advance Behind, then toward the Yankees, four abreast, Tack landward, west. Landward the watching townsfolk strew the shore; Mist-banks of human beings blur the bluffs And blacken the roofs, like swarms of roosting choughs. Waiting the cannon's roar A nation holds its breath for knell of Nevermore Or peal of life : this hour shall cast the sloughs Of generations — and one old dame's joy : Her gunner boy. 22 THE PRESENT HOUR One moment on the quarter deck Jock kneels Beside his Commodore and fighting squad. Their heads are bowed, their prayers go up toward God — Toward God, to whom appeals Still rise in pain and mangling wrath from blind ordeals Of man, still boastful of his brother's blood. — They stand from prayer. Swift comes and silently The enemy. Macdonough holds his men, alert, devout : "He that wavereth is like a wave of the sea Driven with the wind. Behold the ships, that be So great, are turned about Even with a little helm." Jock tightens the blue clout Around his waist, and watches casually Close-by a game-cock, in a coop, who stirs And spreads his spurs. FIGHT 23 Now, bristling near, the British war-birds swoop Wings, and the Yankee Eagle screams in fire; The English Linnet answers, aiming higher. And crash along Jock's poop Her hurtling shot of iron crackles the game-cock's coop, Where lo ! the ribald cock, like a town crier. Strutting a gunslide, flaps to the cheering crew — Yankee-doodle-doo ! Boys yell, and yapping laughter fills the roar: " You bet we'll do 'em ! " " You're a prophet, cocky ! " "Hooray, old rooster!" "Hip, hip, hip!" cries Jockie. Calmly the Commodore Touches his cannon's fuse and fires a twenty-four. Smoke belches black. "Huzza! That's blowed 'em pocky ! '* And Downie's men, like pins before the bowling. Fall scatter-rolling. 24 THE PRESENT HOUR Boom! flash the long guns, echoed by the galleys. The Confiance, wind-baffled in the bay, With both her port bow-anchors torn away, Flutters, but proudly rallies To broadside, while her gunboats range the water-alleys. Then Downie grips Macdonough in the fray, And double-shotted from his roaring flail Hurls the black hail. The hail turns red, and drips in the hot gloom. Jock snuffs the reek and spits it from his mouth And grapples with great winds. The winds blow south. And scent of lilac bloom Steals from his mother's porch in his still sleeping room. Lilacs ! — But now it stinks of blood and drouth ! He staggers up, and stares at blinding light : "God! This is fight!" Fight ! — The sharp loathing retches in his loins ; He gulps the black air, like a drowner swimming, FIGHT 25 Where little round suns in a dance go rimming The dark with golden coins : Round him and round the splintering masts and jangled quoins Reel, rattling, and overhead he hears the hymning — Lonely and loud — of ululating choirs Strangling with wires. Fight ! — But no more the roll of chanting drums, The fifing flare, the flags, the magic spume Filling his spirit with a wild perfume; Now noisome anguish numbs His sense, that mocks and leers at monstrous vacuums. Whang! splits the spanker near him, and the boom Crushes Macdonough, in a jumbled wreck. Stunned on the deck. No time to glance where wounded leaders lie. Or think on fallen sparrows in the storm — Only to fight! The prone commander's form Stirs, rises stumblingly 26 THE PRESENT HOUR And gropes where, under shrieking grape and musketry, Men's bodies wamble like a mangled swarm Of bees. He bends to sight his gun again, Bleeding, and then — Oh, out of void and old oblivion And reptile slime first rose Apollo's head : And God in likeness of Himself, 'tis said. Created such an one. Now shaping Shakspere's forehead, now Napoleon, Various, by infinite invention bred. In His own image moulding beautiful The human skull. Jock lifts his head; Macdonough sights his gun To fire — but in his face a ball of flesh, A v/hizzing clod, has hurled him in a mesh Of tangled rope and tun, While still about the deck the lubber clod is spun FIGHT 27 And, bouncing from the rail, lies in a plesh Of oozing blood, upstaring eyeless, red — A gunner's head. Above the ships, enormous from the lake, Rises a wraith — a phantom dim and gory, Lifting her wondrous limbs of smoke and glory; And little children quake And lordly nations bow their foreheads for her sake. And bards proclaim her in their fiery story; And in her phantom breast, heartless, unheeding. Hearts — hearts are bleeding. IV Macdonough lies with Downie in one land. Victor and vanquished long ago were peers. Held in the grip of peace an hundred years England has laid her hand In ours, and we have held (and still shall hold) the band That makes us brothers of the hemispheres; 28 THE PRESENT HOUR Yea, still shall keep the lasting brotherhood Of law and blood. Yet one whose terror racked us long of yore Still wreaks upon the world her lawless might: Out of the deeps again the phantom Fight Looms on her wings of war, Sowing in armed camps and fields her venomed spore, Embattling monarch's whim against man's right, Trampling with iron hoofs the blooms of time Back in the slime. We, who from dreams of justice, dearly wrought. First rose in the eyes of patient Washington, And through the molten heart of Lincoln won To liberty forgot. Now, standing lone in peace 'mid titans strange dis- traught. Pray much for patience, more — God's will be done ! — For vision and for power nobly to see The world made free. THE CONFLICT: Six Sonnets [August, 1914] I TO WILLIAM WATSON IN ENGLAND Singer of England's ire across the sea, Your austere voice, electric from the deep. Speaks our own yearning, and our spirits sweep To Europe's allied honor. — Painfully, Bowed with a planet's lonely burden, we Held our hot hearts in leash, but now they leap Their ban, like young hounds belling from their keep, To bait the Teuton wolf of tyranny. What! Would he throw us sops of sugared art And poisoned commerce, snarling: "So! lie still Till I have shown my fangs, and torn the heart Of half the world, and gorged my sanguine fill ! " — Now, England, let him see: Rage as he will. He cannot tear our plighted souls apart. 29 30 THE PRESENT HOUR II AMERICAN NEUTRALITY How shall we keep an armed neutrality With our own souls ? Our souls belie our lips. That seek to hold our passion in eclipse And hide the wound of our sharp sympathy, Saying: "One's neighbor differs; he might be Kindled to wrath, were one to wield the whips Of truth." — Great God ! A red Apocalypse Flames on the blinded world : and what do we ? Peace! do we cry? Peace is the godlike plan We love and dedicate our children to; Yet England's cause is ours : The rights of man, Which little Belgium battles for anew. Shall we recant ? No ! — Being American, Our souls cannot keep neutral and keep true. THE CONFLICT 31 III PEACE Peace ! — But there is no peace. To hug the thought Is but to clasp a lover who thinks lies. Go : look your earnest neighbor in the eyes And read the answer there. Peace is not bought By distance from the fight. Peace must be fought And bled for : 'tis a dream whose horrid price Is haggled for by dread realities; Peace is not paid till dreamers are distraught. Would we not close our ears against these ills. Urging our hearts: "Be calm! America Is called upon to rebuild a world." — But ah ! How shall we nobly build with neutral wills? Can we be calm while Belgian anguish shrills? Or would we crown with peace — Caligula ? 32 THE PRESENT HOUR IV WILSON Patience — but peace of heart we cannot choose Nor would he wish us cravenly to keep Aloof in soul, who — large in statesmanship And justice — sent our ships to Vera Cruz. Patience must wring our hearts, while we refuse To launch our country on that crimson deep Which breaks the dikes of Europe, but we sleep Watchful, still waiting by the awful fuse. Wisdom he counsels, and he counsels well Whose patient fortitude against the fret And sneer of time has stood inviolable. We love his goodness and will not forget. With him we pause beside the mouth of hell : — The wolf of Europe has not triumphed yet. THE CONFLICT 33 V KRUPPISM Crowned on the twilight battlefield, there bends A crooked iron dwarf, and delves for gold, Chuckling : " One hundred thousand gatlings — sold ! " And the moon rises, and a moaning rends The mangled living, and the dead distends, And a child cowers on the chartless wold. Where, searching in his safety-vault of mold, The kobold kaiser cuts his dividends. We, who still wage his battles, are his thralls And dying do him homage ; yea, and give Daily our living souls to be enticed Into his power. So long as on war's walls We build engines of death that he may live. So long shall we serve Krupp instead of Christ. 34 THE PRESENT HOUR VI THE REAL GERMANY Bismarck — or rapt Beethoven with his dreams : Ah, which was blind ? Or which bespoke his race ? - That breed which nurtured Heine's haunting grace, And Goethe, mastering Olympic themes Of meditation, Mozart's golden gleams. And Leibnitz charting realms of time and space, Great-hearted Schiller, and that fairy brace Of brothers who first trailed the goblin streams. Bismarck for these builded an iron tomb. And clanged the door, and turned a kaiser's key; And simple folk, that once danced merrily Their May-ring rites, march now in roaring gloom Toward that renascent dawn when the black womb Of buried guns gives birth to Germany. THE LADS OF LIEGE [" Horum omnium fortissimi sunt BelgoB." — Caesar's " Commentaries "] The lads of Liege, beyond our eyes They lie where beauty's laurels be — With lads of old Thermopylae, Who stayed the storming Persians. The lads of Liege, on glory's field They clasp the hands of Roland's men, Who lonely faced the Saracen Meeting the dark invasion. The lads — the deathless lads of Liege, They blazon through our living world Their land — the little land that hurled Olympian defiance. 35 36 THE PRESENT HOUR "Now make us room, now let us pass; Our monarch suffers no delay. To stand in mighty Caesar's way Beseems not Lilliputians." " We make no room ; you shall not pass, For freedom says your monarch nay ! And we have stood in Caesar's way Through freedom's generations. "And here we stand till freedom fall And Caesar cry, ere we succumb. Once more his horum omnium Fortissimi sunt BelgoB." The monarch roars an iron laugh And cries on God to man his guns; But Belgian mothers bore them sons Who man the souls within them: THE LADS OF LIEGE They bar his path, they hold their pass, They bJaze in glory of the Gaul Till Caesar cries again "Of all The bravest are the Belgians!" O lads of Liege, brave lads of Liege, Your souls through glad Elysium Go chanting: horum omnium Fortissimi sunt Belgos! 37 CARNAGE: Six Sonnets 4 [September, 1914] I DOUBT So thin, so frail the opalescent ice Where yesterday, in lordly pageant, rose The monumental nations — the repose Of continents at peace ! Realities Solid as earth they seemed ; yet in a trice Their bastions crumbled in the surging floes Of unconceivable, inhuman woes, Gulfed in a mad, unmeaning sacrifice. We, who survive that world-quake, cower and start, Searching our hidden souls with dark surmise : So thin, so frail — is reason ? Patient art — . Is it all a mockery, and love all lies? Who sees the lurking Hun in childhood's eyes? Is hell so near to every human heart? 38 CARNAGE 39 II THE GREAT NEGATION When that great-minded man, Sir Edward Grey, Said to the hypocritic ' prince of peace ' : "Let us confer, who hold the destinies Of Europe, ere the tempest breaks, and stay Its carnage ! " the proud despot answered nay, And by that great negation loosed the seas And winds of multitudinous miseries To rage around his empire for their prey. He might have uttered "Peace": Peace would have been. He might have abdicated ere he fought For such Satanic empire; but to win Power he refused. Therefore a rankling thought Festers henceforth with that refusaFs sin : — He might have saved the world, and he would not. 40 THE PRESENT HOUR III LOUVAIN Serene in beauty's olden lineage, Calm as the star that hears the Angelus toll, Louvain — the scholar's crypt, the artist's goal. The cloistral shrine of hallowed pilgrimage « Rapt in the dreams of many an ardent age, Louvain, the guileless city of man's soul, Is blotted from the world — a bloodied scroll, Ravaged to sate a drunken Teuton's rage. His lust shall have its laurel. That red sword He ravished with. Time's angel shall again Grasp to sere himy and deify him Lord Of Infamy; yea, brand him with its stain Naked in night, abhorrent and abhorr'd. Where the dead hail him William of Louvain ! CARNAGE 41 IV RHEIMS Apollo mourns another Parthenon In ruins ! — Is the God of Love awake ? And we — must we behold the world's heart break For peace and beauty ravished, and look on Dispassionate ? — Rheims' gloried fane is gone : Not by a planet's rupture, nor the quake Of subterranean titans, but to slake The vengeance of a Goth Napoleon. O Time, let not the anguish numb or pall Of that remembrance! Let no callous heal Our world-wound, till our kindled pities call The parliament of nations, and repeal The vows of war. Till then, pain keep us thrall I More bitter than to battle — is to feel. 42 THE PRESENT HOUR V KULTUR If men must murder, pillage, sack, despoil, Let it not be (lest angels laugh) in the name Of sacred Culture. Vulcan still goes lame Though servile Muses poultice him with oil Of sleek Hypocrisy. They waste their toil Whose boast of light and sweetness takes its claim From deeds of night and wormwood, which defame Fair Culture's shrine and make her gods recoil. No; let the imperial Visigoth put off His borrowed toga, boast aloud his slain In naked savagery, and make his scoff Of Attic graces. So when once again He asks for Culture's crown, 'twill be enough To answer him : Once Rheims was — and Louvain ! CARNAGE 43 VI DESTINY We are what we imagine, and our deeds Are born of dreaming. Europe acts to-day Epics that little children in their play Conjured, and statesmen murmured in their creeds; In barrack, court and school were sown those seeds. Like Dragon's teeth, which ripen to affray Their sowers. Dreams of slaughter rise to slay, And fate itself is stuff that fancy breeds. Mock, then, no more at dreaming, lest our own Create for us a like reality ! Let not imagination's soil be sown With armed men but justice, so that we May for a world of tyranny atone And dream from that despair — democracy. THE MUFFLED DRUMS For brothers laid in blood, For lovers sundered, Defeated motherhood And manhood plundered — We moan, moan the faith of man forgotten. For human vision bleared And childhood bleeding, For ripening harvests sered Before the seeding — We mourn, mourn the beauty unbegotten. We were the wanton ones In old wines sunken, Who sent the nations' sons Forth, reeling drunken With blare and rhythm of war's ruthless glory. 44 THE MUFFLED DRUMS 45 Now in our pulse no more The old wines quicken. For the bannered glory of war Trails draggled and stricken, And the blood-red beast crawls home, blinded and hoary : But we are the beating hearts Of women, whose yearning Shall harass the beast with darts Of their myriad burning Till the Angel of God remould him — an image human. Yea, we are the chanting wills Of women, whose sorrow Rebels at the age-borne ills Of a man-built morrow. And we chant, chant the world redeemed by Woman. ANTWERP 1 Towers — eternal towers against the sky : Dawn-touched, noon-flamed, night-mantled and moon- flecked ! The tenuous dreams of man, the architect. Imagining in stone what may not die Though man, the anarchist, dream enginery For its destruction : towers of intellect. Towers of aspiration — torn and wrecked, Profaned by robber sacrilege : ah, why ? Reason shall ask, and answer shall be given; Justice shall ask, and deal to those insane Their dark asylums, but to those — the vain Of lustful power, how shall their souls be shriven ? — They shall be raised on infamy's renown And from their towers of tyranny hurled down. 1 See note at end of volume. 46 MAGNA CARTA Magna Carta ! Magna Carta ! English brothers, we have borne it On our banners down the ages. — Who shall scorn it ? Bitter fought-for, blood-emblazoned With the fadeless gules of freedom, Interbound with precious pages — English brothers, we who shrine it In our common heart of hearts. Think you we can see a monarch, Tyrant-sceptred, sanguine-shod. Seek to rend it and malign it : We whose sires made him sign it — Him who deemed him next to God ! We who dreamed our world forever Purged and rid Of his spectre — think you, brothers, 47 48 THE PRESENT HOUR We can watch this ghost, resurgent, Sweep his servile hordes toward England, And stand silent ? — God forbid ! Magna Carta ! Magna Carta ! Brother freemen, we who bear it Starward — shall we see him tear it ? Fool or frantic. Let him dare it ! If he reach across the Channel He shall touch across the Atlantic : — Scrolled with new and olden annal, Bitter fought-for, blood-emblazoned With the fadeless gules of freedom. We will hand him — Magna Carta ! Yea, once more shall make him sign it Where the centuries refine it, Till his serfs, who now malign it. Are made sick of him, and free Even as we. MAGNA CARTA 49 So, if ghostly through the sea-mist. You behold his Mediaeval Falcon face peer violating — Lo, with quills and Magna Carta (Sharpened quills and Magna Carta) In a little mead near London, English brothers, we are waiting ! MEN OF CANADA Men of Canada, Fellow Americans, Proud our hearts beat for you over the border: Proud of the fight you wage. Proud of your valiant youth Sailing to battle for freedom and order. On our own battlefields Many's the bout we had — Yankee, Canadian, redcoat and ranger; But our old brotherhood. Staunch through the centuries. Shouts in our blood now to share in your danger. Ah, it's a weary thing Waiting and watching here. Numbing ourselves to a frozen neutraHty: Yet, in a world at war, 'Tis our good part to keep Patient to forge the strong peace of finality. 50 MEN OF CANADA 51 Though, then, our part be Peace, Yet our free fighting souls League with your own 'gainst the world-lust of Vandals ; Yea, in the dreadful night, We, with your women, weep And for your shroudless dead burn our shrine candles. So, by the gunless law Of our sane borderline, By our souls' faith, that no border can sever. Freedom ! — now may your fight. Waging the death of war. Silence the demons of cannon forever ! Kin-folk of Canada, So may your allied arms Smite with his legions the Lord of Disorder ! God speed your noble cause ! God save your gallant sons ! Would we might sail with them — over the border I FRANCE Half artist and half anchorite. Part siren and part Socrates, Her face — alluring fair, yet recondite — Smiled through her salons and academies. Lightly she wore her double mask, Till sudden, at war^s kindling spark. Her inmost self, in shining mail and casque. Blazed to the world her single soul — Jeanne d' Arc ! 52 HAUPTMANN Jean Christophe called to him out of the night — Out of the storm and dark of Europe's hate. Crying : " Where art thou, Hauptmann, who so late Loomed as a rugged tower of human right ? Flame to the world thy lonely beacon-light Of love for alien hearths laid desolate I " — In answer rolled a voice infuriate Hoarse with the fog of racial scorn and spite : " Here am 1 1 — Let them perish I '* And hell laughed To hear that voice — which once was wont to soar With Hannele to heaven, and starward waft The souls of simple weavers — rasp with war ; Yea, laughed to watch that tower's heroic shaft Fall crumbling on the beaconless world shore. 53 NIETZSCHE Some worshipped and some bantered, when The prophets of the drawing room Gossiped of Jesus Christ his doom Under the reign of Supermen, And how the Christian world would quake To hear what Zarathustra spake. Lo, Zarathustra's voice has spoken : And they, who use a mad bard's song To vindicate a tyrant's wrong. Point to the staring dead for token Of their triumphant creed, enshrined In temples of the Teuton mind. The raving dog-star hath his season : But when the light beyond our death Leads back again from Nazareth The holy star of human reason — Then will philosophy no more Be servile to the Muse of War. 54 THE CHILD-DANCERS 1 A bomb has fallen over Notre Dame : Germans have burned another Belgian town: Russians quelled in the east: England in qualm: I closed my eyes, and laid the paper down. Gray ledge and moor-grass and pale bloom of light By pale blue seas ! What laughter of a child world-sprite, Sweet as the horns of lone October bees. Shrills the faint shore with mellow, old delight? What elves are these In smocks gray-blue as sea and ledge. Dancing upon the silvered edge Of darkness — each ecstatic one Making a happy orison. With shining limbs, to the low-sunken sun ? — 1 At end of volume see note. 55 56 THE PRESENT HOUR See : now they cease Like nesting birds from flight : Demure and debonair They troop beside their hostess' chair To make their bedtime courtesies : " Spokoinoi notchi ! — Gute Nacht ! Bon soir ! Bon soir ! — Good night !^' \^Tiat far-gleaned lives are these Linked in one holy family of art ? — Dreams : dreams once Christ and Plato dreamed How fair their happy shades depart! Dear God 1 how simple it all seemed, Till once again Before my eyes the red type quivered : Slain : Ten thousand of the enemy. — Then laughter! laughter from the ancient sea Sang in the gloaming: Athens! Galilee! And elfin voices called from the extinguished light : " Spokoinoi notchi ! — Gute Nacht ! Bon soir! Bon soir! — Good night!'* BATTLEFIELDS On the battlefields of birth, Lulled from pain in twilight sleep, Languorous in calm reliance On the Christ-like soul of science. They whose patient soldiership Bore the age-old pangs of earth Till the patient seers of reason set them free — Volunteers, whose valiant warring Is the passion of restoring — Mothers, gentle mothers, bless you, Germany ! By the battlefields of death. Racked by prayers that never sleep, Anguished with a wild defiance Of the Satan powers of science. They whose loving guardianship Knit the subtle bonds of breath Till their sons of iron tore them ruthlessly — Victims, whose heart-blinding portion Is their victory's abortion — Mothers, maddened mothers, curse you, Germany 57 IN MEMORIAM Mrs. Woodrow Wilson Her gentle spirit passed with Peace — With Peace out of a world at war Racked by the old earth-agonies Of kaiser, king and czar, Where Bear and Lion crouch in lair To rend the iron Eagle's flesh And viewless engines of the air Spin wide their lightning mesh. And darkly kaiser, czar and king With awful thunders stalk their prey. — Yet Peace, that moves with silent wing, Is mightier than they. And she — our lady who has passed — And Peace were sisters : They are gone Together through time's holocaust To blaze a bloodless dawn. 58 INMEMORIAM 59 How otherwise the royal die Whose power is throned on rolling drums ! Her monument of royalty Is builded in the slums : Her latest prayer, transformed to law, Shall more than monarch's vow endure, Assuaging there, with loving awe. The anguish of the poor. ^^L^ ^•^' ^^ c^^^x^'y '^ -^-■-■■'^^:/^^v^'^^ '^ Ch^ K A PRAYER OF THE PEOPLES God of us who kill our kind I Master of this blood-tracked Mind Which from wolf and Caliban Staggers toward the star of Man — Now, on Thy cathedral stair, God, we cry to Thee in prayer I Where our stifled anguish bleeds Strangling through Thine organ reeds. Where our voiceless songs suspire From the corpses in Thy choir — Through Thy charred and shattered nave, God, we cry on Thee to save I Save us from our tribal gods ! From the racial powers, whose rods — 60 A PRAYER OF THE PEOPLES 61 Wreathed with stinging serpents — stir Odin and old Jupiter From their ancient hells of hate To invade Thy dawning state. Save us from their curse of kings I Free our souls' imaginings From the feudal dreams of war; Yea, God, let us nevermore Make, with slaves* idolatry, Kaiser, king or czar of Thee! We who, craven in our prayer. Would lay off on Thee our care — Lay instead on us Thy load; On our minds Thy spirit's goad. On our laggard wills Thy whips And Thy passion on our lips ! Fill us with the reasoned faith That the prophet lies, who saith 62 THE PRESENT HOUR All this web of destiny, Torn and tangled, cannot be Newly wove and redesigned By the Godward human mind. Teach us, so, no more to call Guidance supernatural To our help, but — heart and will — Know ourselves responsible For our world of wasted good And our blinded brotherhood. Lord, our God ! to whom, from clay. Blood and mire. Thy peoples pray — Not from Thy cathedral's stair Thou hearest : — Thou criest through our prayer For our prayer is but the gate: We, who pray, ourselves are fate. THE PRESENT HOUR II PEACE PANAMA HYMN Lord of the sundering land and deep, For whom of old, to suage thy wrath. The floods stood upright as a heap To shape thy host a dry-shod path, Lo, now, from tide to sundered tide Thy hand, outstretched in glad release. Hath torn the eternal hills aside To blaze a liquid path for Peace. Thy hand, englaived in flaming steel, Hath clutched the demons of the soil And made their forge-fires roar and reel To serve thy seraphim in toil; While round their pits the nations, bowed. Have watched thine awful enginery Compel, through thunderbolt and cloud. The demigods to slave for thee, p 65 66 THE PRESENT HOUR For thee hath glaring Cyclops sweat, And Atlas groaned, and Hercules For thee his iron sinews set. And thou wast lord of Rameses; Till now they pause, to watch thy hand Lead forth the first leviathan Through mazes of the jungled land. Submissive to the will of man : Submissive through the will of us To thine, the universal will, That leads, divine and devious. To world-communions vaster still. — The titans rest; intense, aware, The host of nations dumbly waits; The mountains lift their brows and stare; The tides are knocking at the gates. PANAMA HYMN 67 Almighty of the human mind. Unlock the portals of om- sleep That lead to visions of our kind. And marry sundered deep to deep! GOETHALS A MAN went down to Panama Where many a man had died To slit the sliding mountains And lift the eternal tide: A man stood up in Panama, And the mountains stood aside. The Power that wrought the tide and peak Wrought mightier the seer; And the One who made the isthmus He made the engineer, And the good God he made Goethals To cleave the hemisphere. The reek of fevered ages rose From poisoned jungle and strand. Where the crumbling wrecks of failure Lay sunk in the torrid sand — Derelicts of old desperate hopes And venal contraband: 68 GOETHALS 69 Till a mind glowed white through the yellow mist And purged the poison-mold. And the wrecks rose up in labor. And the fevers' knell was tolled, And the keen mind cut the world-divide, Untarnished by world gold : For a poet wrought in Panama With a continent for his theme, And he wrote with flood and fire To forge a planet's dream. And the derricks rang his dithyrambs And his stanzas roared in steam. But the poet's mind it is not his Alone, but a million men's: Far visions of lonely dreamers Meet there as in a lens, And lightnings, pent by stormy time. Leap through, with flame intense: 70 THE PRESENT HOUR So from our age three giants loom To vouch man's venturous soul : Amundsen on his ice-peak. And Peary from his pole. And midway, where the oceans meet, Goethals — beside his goal : Where old Balboa bent his gaze He leads the liners through. And the Horn that tossed Magellan Bellows a far halloo. For where the navies never sailed Steamed Goethals and his crew; So nevermore the tropic routes Need poleward warp and veer, But on through the Gates of Goethals The steady keels shall steer. Where the tribes of man are led toward peace By the prophet-engineer. A CHILD AT THE WICKET A LITTLE isle : it is for some Hell's gate, for some Elysium ! — Round Ellis Isle the salt waves flow With old-world tears, wept long ago; Round Ellis Isle the warm waves leap With new-world laughter from the deep. And centuries of sadness smile To clasp their arms round Ellis Isle. I watched her pass the crowded piers, A peasant child of maiden years ; Her face was toward the evening sky Where fair Manhattan towered high ; Her yellow kerchief caught the breeze. Her crimson kirtle flapped her knees. As lithe she swayed to tug the band Of swaddled bundle in her hand. 71 72 THE PRESENT HOUR From her right hand the big load swung. But with her left strangely she clung To something light, which seemed a part Of her, and held it 'gainst her heart: A something frail, which tender hands Had touched to song in far-off lands On twilights, when the looms are mute: A thing of love — a slender lute. Hardly she seemed to know she held That frail thing fast, but went compelled By wonder of the dream that lay In those bright towers across the bay. A staggering load, a treasure light — She bore them both, and passed from sight. From Ellis Isle I watched her pass: Pinned on her breast was Lawrence, Mass, A CHILD AT THE WICKET 73 O little isle, you are for some Heirs gate, for some Elysium! Your wicket swings, and some to song Pass on, and some to silent wrong; But who, where hearts of toilers bleed In songless toil, ah, who will heed — On twilights, when the looms are mute — A thing of love, a slender lute? HYMN FOR EQUAL SUFFRAGE They have strewn the burning hearths of Man with darkness and with mire, They have heaped the burning hearts of Man with ashes of desire, Yet from out those hearts and hearths still leaps the quick eternal fire Whose flame is liberty. But the flame which once led deathward all the dazzled fighting hordes Lights them now to living freedom from the bondage of their lords, And our mothers are uprisen 'mid their sons to wrest the swords From hands of tyranny. For the freedom of the laborer is freedom from his toil, And freedom of the citizen is right to share the soil, And the freedom of our country is our loosing of the coil That chokes posterity. 74 HYMN FOR EQUAL SUFFRAGE 75 So we who wage our devious wars, in fastness and in fen. Let us claim our common birthright in the living sun again. Till the battle of the beasts becomes the reasoning of men, And joy our destiny. Let us march then, all together, not because our leaders call. But at summons of the mighty soul of man within us all, Men and women, equal comrades, let us storm the nation's wall And cry "Equality!" For the vote that brings to woman and to man life's common bread. Is mightier than the mindless gun that leaves a million dead; And the rights of Man shall triumph where once men and women bled When mothers of men are free. LEXINGTON "Where is the little town of Lexington? Oh, I have lost my way !" — But all the brawling people hurried on : Why should they stay To watch a tattered boy, with wistful face. Dazed by the roaring strangeness of the place ? — In wondering scorn Turning, he tapped the powder from his powder-horn. " Where is my blood-bright hearth of Lexington ?" — Strangely the kindling cry Startled the crowded street; yet everyone Still scrambled by Into the shops and markets ; till at last Went by a pensive scholar. As he passed. Sudden, to whet Of steel, he heard a flint-lock flash : their faces met. 76 LEXINGTON 77 "What like, then, is your little Lexington?" "Oh, sir, it is my home. Which I have lost." — The scholar's sharp eyes shone. " Come with me ! Come, And I will show you, old and hallowed, all Its maps and marks and shafts memorial." — Out of the roar They went, into green silence where old elm trees soar. " Here is your little town of Lexington : Let fall your eyes And read the old inscription on this stone : 'Beneath this lies The first who fell in our dear country's fight For revolution and the freeman's right.'" The boy's eyes fell, But shining swiftly rose : " Yes, I remember well ! " Yet there lies not my lost home Lexington : For none who fall 78 THE PRESENT HOUR At Lexington is buried under stone; And eyes of all Who fight at Lexington look up at God Not down upon His servants under sod Whose souls are sped; They lie who say in Lexington free men are dead." "My son, I said not so of Lexington. 'There lie the bones,' I said, *of great men, and their souls are gone.' God sends but once His lightning-flash to strike the sacred spot. Our great sires are departed." — "They are not I I am alive. / fought at Lexington ; you see, I still survive ! "And still I live to fight at Lexington. I am come far From Russian steppes and Balkan valleys, wan With ghostly war. LEXINGTON 79 Where still the holy watchword in the fight Was Revolution and the freeman's right ! — Now I am come Back with that battle-cry to help my own dear home. " Here, here it lies — my lost home Lexington ! Not there in dust, But here in the great highway of the sun, Where still the lust Of arrogant power flaunts its regiments, And lurking hosts of tyranny pitch their tents. And still the yoke Of heavy-laden labor weighs on simple folk. "Our country cries for living Lexington! From mine and slum And hearths where man's rebellion still burns on. Rolls the deep drum : 80 THE PRESENT HOUR Ah, not to elegize but emulate Is homage worthy of the heroic great, Whose memoried spot Serves but to quicken fire from ashes long forgot. "Here, then, O little town of Lexington, Burnish anew Our muskets for the battle long begun For freedom ! — You, O you, my comrades, called from all world-clans. Here, by the deeds of dear Americans That cannot die, Let Lexington be still our revolution-cry!" SCHOOL I Old Hezekiah leaned hard on his hoe And squinted long at Eben, his lank son. — The silence shrilled with crickets. Day was done. And, row on dusky row, Tall bean poles ribbed with dark the gold-bright after- glow. Eben stood staring: ever, one by one. The tendril tops turned ashen as they flared. Still Eben stared. Oh, there is wonder on New Hampshire hills. Hoeing the warm bright furrows of brown earth. And there is grandeur in the stone wall's birth. And in the sweat that spills From rugged toil is sweetness ; yet for wild young wills There is no dew of wonder, but stark dearth, In one old man who hoes his long bean rows. And only hoes. G 81 82 THE PRESENT HOUR Old Hezekiah turned slow on his heel. He touched his son. — Through all the carking day There are so many littlish cares to weigh Large natures down, and steel The heart of understanding. — "Son, how is't ye feel? What are ye starin' on — a gal?" A ray Flushed Eben from the fading afterglow: He dropped his hoe. He dropped his hoe, but sudden stooped again And raised it where it fell. Nothing he spoke. But bent his knee and crack! the handle broke Splintering. With glare of pain. He flung the pieces down, and stamped upon them; then — Like one who leaps out naked from his cloak — Ran. — " Here, come back ! Where are ye bound — you fool?" He cried — "To school!" SCHOOL 83 II Now on the mountain Morning laughed with light — With light and all the future in her face, For there she looked on many a far-off place And wild adventurous sight, For which the mad young autumn wind hallooed with might And dared the roaring mill-brook to the race, Where blue-jays screamed beyond the pine-dark pool — " To school ! — To school ! " Blackcoated, Eben took the barefoot trail. Holding with wary hand his Sunday boots ; Harsh catbirds mocked his whistling with their hoots ; Under his swallowtail Against his hip-strap bumping, clinked his dinner pail ; Frost maples flamed, lone thrushes touched their lutes ; Gray squirrels bobbed, with tails stiff curved to backs, To eye his tracks. 84 THE PRESENT HOUR Soon at the lonely crossroads he passed by The little one-room schoolhouse. He peered in. There stood the bench where he had often been Admonished flagrantly To drone his numbers : Now to this he said good- bye For mightier lure of more romantic scene : Goodbye to childish rule and homely chore Forevermore I All day he hastened like the flying cloud Breathless above him, big with dreams, yet dumb. With tightened jaw he chewed the tart spruce gum. And muttered half aloud Huge oracles. At last, where through the pine-tops bowed The sun, it rose ! — His heart beat like a drum. There, there it rose — his tower of prophecy : The Academy I SCHOOL 85 III They learn to live who learn to contemplate. For contemplation is the unconfined God who creates us. To the growing mind Freedom to think is fate, And all that agp and after-knowledge augurate Lies in a little dream of youth enshrined : That dream to nourish with the skilful rule Of love — is school. Eben, in mystic tumult of his teens, Stood bursting — like a ripe seed — into soul. All his life long he had watched the great hills roll Their shadows, tints and sheens By sun- and moon-rise; yet the bane of hoeing beans And round of joyless chores, his father's toll. Blotted their beauty; nature was as not: He had never thought. 86 THE PRESENT HOUR But now he climbed his boyhood's castle tower And knocked : Ah, well then for his after-fate That one of nature's masters opened the gate, Where like an April shower Live influence quickened all his earth-blind seed to power. Strangely his sense of truth grew passionate, And like a young bull, led in yoke to drink, He bowed to think. There also bowed their heads with him to quaff — The snorting herd ! And many a wholesome grip He had of rivalry and fellowship. Often the game was rough, But Eben tossed his horns and never called it off ; For still through play and task his Dream would slip — A radiant Herdsman, guiding destiny To his degree. SCHOOL 87 Once more old Hezekiah stayed his hoe To squint at Eben. Silent, Eben scanned A little roll of sheepskin in his hand, While, row on dusky row. Tall bean poles ribbed with dark the gold-bright after- glow. The boy looked up : Here was another land ! Mountain and farm with mystic beauty flared Where Eben stared. Stooping, he lifted with a furtive smile Two splintered sticks, and spliced them. Nevermore His spirit would go beastwise to his chore Blinded, for even while He stooped to the old task, sudden in the sunset's pile His radiant Herdsman swung a fiery door, Through which came forth with far-borne trumpetings Poets and kings. 88 THE PRESENT HOUR His fellow conquerors : There Virgil dreamed, There Csesar fought and won the barbarous tribes. There Darwin, pensive, bore the ignorant gibes. And One with thorns redeemed From malice the wild hearts of men : there flared and gleamed With chemic fire the forges of old scribes. Testing anew the crucibles of toil To save God's soil. So Eben turned again to hoe his beans; But now, to ballads which his Herdsman sung. Henceforth he hoed the dream in with the dung, And for his ancient spleens Planting new joys, imagination found him means. — At last old Hezekiah loosed his tongue : " Well, boy, this school — what has it learned ye to know?" He said: "To hoe.'' THE PLAYER [Shakspere] His wardrobe is the world, and day and night His many-mirror' d dressing room : At dawn He apes the elvish faun. Or, garbed in saffron hose and scarlet shoon, Mimics the madcap sprite Of ever-altering youth ; at chime of noon He wears the azure mail and blazoned casque Of warring knighthood ; till, at starry stroke Of dark, all pale he dons his "inky cloak" And meditates — the waning moon his tragic mask. His theatre is the soul, and man and woman His infinite repertory : Age on age. Treading his fancy's stage. Ephemeral shadows of his master mind. We act our parts — the human Players of scenes long since by him designed; 89 90 THE PRESENT HOUR And stars, that blaze in tinsel on our boards, Shine with a moment's immortality Because they are his understudies, free For one aspiring hour to sound his magic chords. For not with scholars and their brain-worn scripts. Nor there behind the footlights' fading glow Shakspere survives : ah, no ! Deep in the passionate reality Of raging life above the darkling crypts Of death, he meditates the awed "To be Or not to be" of millions, yet to whom His name is nothing; there, on countless quests, Unlettered Touchstones quibble with his jests, Unlaureled Hamlets yearn, and anguished Lears up- loom. Leave, then, to Avon's spire and silver stream Their memory of ashes sung and sighed : Our Shakspere never died, THE PLAYER 91 Nor ever was born, save as the god is born From every soul that dares to doubt and dream. He dreams — but is not mortal : eve and morn, Dirge and delight, float from his brow like prayer. Beside him, charmed Apollo lifts his lyre; Below, the heart of man smoulders in fire; Between the two he stands, timeless — the poet-player. TO JOSEPHINE PRESTON PEABODY (On first reading her play "The Wolf of Gubbio") CoNJURESS, here YouVe poured, all clear, In a cup, a carven crystal cup — Pied with lights that flush and falter And flower again — All in a three-rimmed loving-cup Fit for the dear Madonna's altar, Where thieves and shrews and wolvish men And wondering children may come to sup — All in a cup, a shining cup, Held by the trembling paws and fingers Of your divine dog Era Lupone And him, his crony, Whose loving laughter lingers In the echo of song that bubbles so easy In syllabling: d'Assissi! d'Assissi! 92 JOSEPHINE PRESTON PEABODY 93 Him, large white soul in the simple wee body — Pulsing, you've poured in a glowing cup For joy of our generations — Wine : wine distilled from the art And the sheen Of the mind and the heart Of Josephine Preston Peabody. — Fair befall her ! — Felicitations I PROLOGUE AND EPILOGUE TO A BIRD MASQUE PROLOGUE Enter Fantasy, who speaks: Gentles, just now I met an elf Who crooked mid-air his finger joint To beckon me, poising himself Sheer on a shining question-point; And there he cried: ''Who may you be? Where are you bound, if one may ask? What are these birds that hold a masque? What is a masque? What witchery Can cause my woodland boughs to grace This walled and crowded shut-in place? How may divine Aurora rise Under a roof ? That parchment scroll — What's written there?" — I said: "Replies To elves like you, who claim their toll Of answers." So I cast my eyes Downward, and read this from my roll : 94 PROLOGUE 95 I Follow me, Gentles ! Follow me By hidden paths, for I am Fantasy : — Between the ear and what is heard, Betwixt the eye and what is seen, Midway the poet and his word I hold my shadowy demesne. And there to-night I act a thing — Nor drama nor lyric but mid-v/ay — Wrought for my fairy folk to sing And real folk to play. Your nature critic does not ask Robin to nest with wren, Yet both are birds : Why argue, then. What drama is, or masque? My theatre's art is nature's, when It serves the creator's task. 96 THE PRESENT HOUR II Then, follow me, Gentles, if you will ! To follow means but tarry still Here in your seats, for I will bring Horizons for your journeying. Till soon this many-murmured hall Shall be for you a silent wood. Where we may watch, through leafy solitude, Quercus the faun, and hear his echo call In sighing surds The vowel-bubbling birds. And spy where Dawn steals past with pale footfall. Ill Come, then, for this can only be If you will follow Fantasy. No magic is, except through me; Yet I myself can nothing do Alone; my radiance 'tis from you. PROLOGUE 97 For if in woods I walk alone No light will be around me thrown; And if alone you walk the woods, Your eyes will blink through darkening hoods. IV Come, then, together let us go, As birds and men together meet Where boughs are dim and woodlands sweet With meditation. Meeting so. My simplest arts Will serve to please you, and unblind Your own rapt vision ; for kind hearts Need no compulsion to be kind To their own natures. So the mind Amongst you which shall act most feelingly My simple masque, and find the fewest flaws. Shall win my best award, and he (or she) Be showered by my players' glad applause. 98 THE PRESENT HOUR EPILOGUE Gentles, if you have followed me, Now is no need to say goodbye; For we shall meet in revery Wherever glad birds sing and fly — Wherever sad birds bleed and dumbly die. Oh, where they mount on wings and song 'Tis we who mount there — you and I ; And where they fall and suffer wrong 'Tis we who perish — you and I : Our own is Ornis* pain or ecstasy. So, at fresh rise and set of sun. May Ornis bring her joy to you, each one. And Tacita her dreams ! — Our masque is done. THE SONG SPARROW When June was cool and clover long And birds were glad in soul and body, I sat me down to make a song, And sweltered in my study : I swinked and sweat with weary art To tell how merry was my heart. With weary art and wordy choice I toiled, when sudden — low and breezy • I heard a little friendly voice Call : Simple, simple, so easy ! I heard, yet sat apart in dole To sing how social was my soul. In vain ! — That artless voice went round In tiny echoes faint and teasy. I rose: "What toil then, have you found Simple, simple, so easyf" 99 100 THE PRESENT HOUR Dauntless, the bird, with dewy beak, Carolled again his cool critique. Nay, song it is a simple thing For hearts that seek no reason: Relentless bird, why should you sing Who are the happy season ? — Still why! The root of joy I seek. While laughter ripples from your beak. No wonder, then, the bard's pen creaks. The critic's drone grows wheezy. When joy the June bird never seeks Is simple, simple, so easy! While we, who find our art so long, Still make a subterfuge of song! TO AN UPLAND PLOVER Crescent-wing'd, sky-clean Hermit of pastures wild, Upland plover, shy-soul'd lover Of field ways undefiled ! I watch your curve-tipt pinion glean — Slim as a scythe — the rusty green Reaches of sweet-fern cover That slant to your secret glade, But what you cull with your rhythmic blade What mortal can discover? Azure-born, gale-blown Gull of the billowy hills. My heart goes forth to see you hover So far from human sills. To hear your tweeting, shrill and lone, 101 102 THE PRESENT HOUR Make from the moorgrass such sharp moan As some unshriven lover. For you are sorrow-wise With memory, whose passions rise Whence no man may discover. Reticent, rare of song. Rears the shy soul its pain : You sought no cottage eave as cover To dole a dulcet plain; But swift, on pinions lithe and strong, You sought a place for your wild wrong God only might discover, And there God, calling, came, And flies with you in His white flame — Your wilding mate, O plover I RAIN REVERY In the lone of night by the pattering tree I sat alone with Poetry — With Poetry, my old shy friend, And his tenuous shadow seemed to blend — Beyond the lampshine on the sill — With the mammoth shadow of the hill, And his breath fell soft on the pool-dark pane With the murmurous, murmuring muffled hoof Of the rain, the rain The rain on the roof. In the vast of night and its vacancy I prayed aloud to Poetry, And his luminous eyes grew large and dim As my heart-pulse quickened to question him; For out of that rumbling rhymeless rune He only might know, by a sense atune, 103 104 THE PRESENT HOUR To unravel the anguish, and render vain The remorseless will that wove the woof Of the rain, the rain The rain on the roof. So I cried : " What mute conspiracy Have you made with the night, O Poetry? Lover and friend of my warm doorway. Do you crouch there too on the storm-soaked clay ? Did you creep indoors when that gust of damp Raised the dead moon-moths round my lamp And the wan flame guttered ? — Hark, again I Do you ride there — so close, so aloof — With the rain, the rain The rain on the roof? "Ah, what of the rapture and melody We might have wrought, dear Poetry ! Imagined tower and dream-built shrine, Must they crumble in dark like this pale lampshine? RAINREVERY 105 Our dawn-flecked meadows lyric-shrill, Shall they lie as dumb as the gloom-drenched hill? Our song-voiced lovers ! — Shall none remain ?" — Under the galloping, gusty hoof Answered the rain, rain Rain on the roof. THE HEART IN THE JAR A Meditation on the Nobel Prize Award for Medical Research, 1912 Alive it beats in a bosom of glass — A glowing heart ! It has come to pass ! Ventricle, auricle. Artery quivering: No metaphorical Symbol of art, No cold, mechanical trick of a cog, But ardent — an organ mysterious. Alive, delivering Serene, continuous Pulses, poised in its chamber of glass. Beating — the heart of a dog ! 106 THE HEART IN THE JAR 107 II And it came to pass While the hearts of men Were selling and buying The blood of their brothers, Then, even then — While grocer and draper And soldier were eying Their market-news in the morning paper. And, musing there among the others. Their poet of words Stood staring — his back to the laboratory (Where the poet of life Plied ether and knife) — Stood musing his rhymes for a miracle-story Of Babylon queens or Attic birds. 108 THE PRESENT HOUR III Yet others were there more strange (More strange, as they spoke in the holy name Of the human heart, while still their eyes Were blind to the light love's visions range) — For they cried: "Lo, the dog — he dies! Spare him the knife ! What have ye done. Awarders of fame I Will you grant to one Who slaughters — the great world-prize?'* Yet these are the same Who cherish the deed and worship the pain Of saints that offered their blood in fire For the meed of men. And these are the same who bend the knee To One who hung on the bleeding tree Under the seraphim: In the name — in the hallowed name of Him Who raised us from Caliban, Would they grudge to a dog — what a god might aspire To render his heart for the Heart of Man ? THE HEART IN THE JAR 109 IV How calm in its crystal tomb It beats to the mandate of life! How hush it waits in the sexless womb For the hour of its strange midwife — The seer, whose talismanic touch Shall give it birth in another — what? The heart of a dog once, was it not? So then, if it still be such, Why, then, the dog — (cur, thoroughbred, Mastiff, was it, or hound ?) — What of the dog ? — is he quick or dead ? His soul (as they used to say) In what Elysian field should he stray, Or where lie down in his grave? For hark ! — Through the clear concave Of the glass, that delicate pulsing sound I Ah, once, how it whirred in the flooded dark Of his deep-lunged chest, with rhythmic beat 110 THE PRESENT HOUR To the wild curvet of his wonderful feet And the rapturous passion of his bark. As he welcomed his homing master's hand. To crouch at the quick command! Yet it never has ceased to beat : — Charmed by the poet of life. Freed by his art and the cunning knife That counterfoils the shears of fate, See it quiver now in that golden bar Of noon — unlaboring, isolate. Alive, in a crystal jar! The heart of a dog — why pause ? Why pause on your brink, bright jar? Or why This reticent allocution? A dog ! — Shall I stop at to-day, because To-morrow it might be I ? — Yea, and if it be! Even this heart of me THE HEART IN THE JAR 111 The subtle bard of life with his blade To sever from out the mystic whole I have deemed my Soul And shatter me — like no cloven shade Divined by a Dante's ecstasy — In morsels to immortality. Piecemeal to dissolution ! This, then, that knocks at my breast — Starting at the image of its own inquest Hung in a gleaming jar — this sentient thing Responsive in the night To messages of grandeur and delight, Pensive to Winter, passionate to Spring, Mounting on strokes of music's rhythmic wing. Beating more swift when my beloved's cheek Ruddies with rapture the tongue fails to speak. And pausing quite When her rose turns to white — This servant, delicate to suffering. 112 THE PRESENT HOUR Insurgent to restraint, soothed by redress, This shall the life-bard place upon his shelf Beside the dog — and both shall acquiesce. VI For he — artist of baffling life — himself Sculptor and plastic instrument — He holds within his hand the vast intent, And carves from out the crimson clay of death Incredible images Of quickening fauns, and headless victories More terrible than her of Samothrace, — Yea, toys with such as these, As, silent, he lifts a severed Gorgon *s face Toward his own; (The watchers hold their breath. Hiding their dread.) Calmly he looks — nor turns to stone, But with a touch freezes the sphinx instead. Till last, all pale, beside him — like a dream THE HEART IN THE JAR 113 That rises into daylight out of sleep — Death rises from the mystic, crimson stream And murmurs at his ear: "What, then, am I? And what art thou whose scalpel strikes so deep To slay me? Yea, I felt it glance me by And I am wounded ! Give it me ! " — They clutch : Death snatches, and his frozen fingers touch The scalpel's edge — when lo, a lightning gleam Ruddies their wrestling shadows on the night; Immense they lengthen down the vasty gloom And darken in their height The rafters of a silent room : Around its walls, ranged in the crystal jars Of infinite stars. Beat, as they burn, the myriad hearts of life; In lordship, where their lonely shadows loom. Death and the Artist grapple for the knife. NOTES Of the poems collected in this volume, those in Part I (War) have been written during the last ten weeks; those in Part II (Peace) have been selected from poems written during the last two years — chiefly during 1914. Most of them have been pub- lished, separately, in the following journals and newspapers, to the editors of which the author makes his acknowledgments: Tfie North American Review^ Collier^s Weeklyj The Outlook, The Forum, The Independent, The Boston Evening Transcript, The New York Times and Times Literary Supplement, The New York Evening Post. New York City, October 26, 1914. 116 NOTES Most of tlie poems in this volume were written for special occasions. These notes record the dates and events which called forth their expression, as follows : — I: War Fight : written for the centenary celebration of the naval battle of Plattsbm'gh, and read by the author at Plattsburgh, N.Y., September 11. 1914. In the naval battle of Plattsburgh, the American com- mander "Macdonough himself worked Hke a common sailor, in pointing and handling a favorite gun. While bending over to sight it, a round shot cut in two the spanker boom, which fell on his head and struck him sense- less for two or three minutes; he then leaped to his feet and continued as before, when a shot took off the head of the captain of the gun crew and drove it in his face with such force as to knock him to the other side of the deck^ The above quotation is from ** The Naval War of 1812," by Theodore Roosevelt. The Conflict : These six sonnets here printed were originally published, together, in the Boston Evening Transcript, August 29, 1914. The first, "To WilUam Watson," is a response to a sonnet by Mr. Watson entitled " To the United States," first pubhshedin The London Post, and cabled to the New York Times. The Lads of Liege : First printed in the New York Times, September 2, 1914. Carnage : These six sonnets were first published, together, in the Boston Evening Transcript, September 26, 1914. The MufSed Drums : These stanzas (published in the New York Evening Post, September 3, 1914) were written 117 118 THE PRESENT HOUR with reference to the Peace Procession of Women in New- York City, August 29, 1914. Antwerp: The early press accounts of the storming of Antwerp by the Germans told of great damage to the city's architecture. Later accounts have described a less amount of physical injury inflicted. This sonnet, however, has refer- ence less to the physical violence, than to the spiritual violation wrought by unwarranted invaders. Men of Canada : First printed in the Boston Evening Tran- script, October 17, 1914, shortly after the sailing of Canadian troops to England. The Child-Dancers: The httle children of the Isadora Duncan School of Dancing, to whom these verses refer, came to America in September, owing to conditions of war in France. Russian, German, French, and EngUsh, they form a happy and harmonious family of the belhgerent races. A Prayer of the Peoples: This poem was written on the day of President Wilson's Call to Prayer, Sunday, October 4, 1914. It was published in the New York Times, on October fifth. In Memoriam : Mrs. Woodrow Wilson : These stanzas were first printed in the New YorTc Evening Post, August 13, 1914. Shortly before her death, the earnest, expressed wish of Mrs. Wilson for the passing of the law for the betterment of conditions in the slum district of Wash- ington was fulfilled by vote of the Senate. II: Peace Panama Hymn: Sung by a chorus at the Panama Festival for the benefit of the New York Association for the Blind, New York City, March 25, 1913, for which occasion the hymn was written. It was published in the North American Review, April, 1913. NOTES 119 Goethals: written for the National Testimonial to Colonel George W. Goethals, and read by the author at Carnegie Hall, New York City, March 4, 1914. A Child at the Wicket : This poem, which narrates a true experience of the author at Ellis Island, refers by implication to the now historic labor troubles at Law- rence, Mass., in 1912. Hymn for Equal Suffrage: Written for the Equal Suffrage Meeting (Authors' Night) held at Cooper Union, New York City, in January 1914, and read by the author on that occasion. The poem is based on one of a like nature in the writer's play " Mater." Lexington : Written for the two hundredth anniversary of the incorporation of the town of Lexington, and read at Lexington, Mass., June 8, 1913. School: Written for the centenary celebration of the founding of Meriden Academy, and read by the author at Meriden, N.H., June 25, 1913. The Player: written for the celebration of the three hundredth anniversary of the birth of Shakspere, and read by Mr. Douglas Wood at the ceremonies beside Shak- spere's statue in Central Park, New York City, April 23, 1914. Prologue and Epilogue to a Bird Masque: Thesewere written for the indoor performance of the author's Bird Masque " Sanctuary " in New York City, at the Hotel Astor Ballroom Theatre, February 24, 1914. On that occasion they were recited by Mrs. Charles Douville Coburn (in the r61e of Fantasy), who has since made use of them in the performances of the Masque by the Coburn Players at various American universities. The Heart in the Jar: written at the time of the an- nouncement of the award, to Dr. Alexis Carrel, of the Nobel Prize for Medical Research, and published in the New York Times Literary Supplement, December 8, 1912. 'T^HE following pages contain advertisements of books by the same author, and other poetry OTHER WORKS BY PERCY MACKAYE The Sistine Eve, and Other Poems New Edition, cloth, gilt top, i2mo "... will place him among the most noteworthy of the younger school of literary producers." — Bellman. Ode on the Centenary of Abraham Lincoln Cloth, gilt top, i6mo, $.yj net " Of a form nearly faultless, its strong, resonant metre and lofty sen- timent and imagery make of it one of the distinctive productions of the day, a poem to be read, reread, and remembered." — ArgonatU. Jeanne d'Arc Cloth, decorated covers^ gilt top, i2mo, $1.2^ net "A series of scenes animated at times by a sure, direct, and simple poetry, again by the militant fire, and finally by the bitter pathos of the most moving, perhaps the most beautiful, and certainly the most in- explicable story in profane history." — Philadelphia Ledger. The Canterbury Pilgrims Cloth, decorated covers, gilt top, i2mo, $1.2^ net " This is a comedy in four acts, — a comedy in the higher and bet- ter meaning of the term. It is an original conception worked out with a rare degree of freshness and buoyancy, and it may honestly be called a play of unusual interest and unusual literary merit. . . . The drama might well be called a character portrait of Chaucer, for it shows him forth with keen discernment, a captivating figure among men, an intensely human, vigorous, kindly man. ... It is a moving, vigorous play in action. Things go rapidly and happily, and, while there are many passages of real poetry, the book is essentially a drama." — St. Paul Dispatch. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York OTHER WORKS BY PERCY MACKA YE — Continued A Garland to Sylvia Cloth, gilt top, i2mo, $1.2^ net "... contains much charming poetry." — New York Post. Sappho and Phaon Cloth, decorated covers^ gilt top, i2mo, $1.2^ net " Mr. Mackaye's work is the most notable addition that has been made for many years to American dramatic literature. 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Presenting as it does the stories of the great bard in language that twentieth century readers unversed in Old English can understand and enjoy, it opens up a rich store of fascinating literature. This cheaper edition of the work is de- signed with the purpose of still further increasing its usefulness. It departs in no way from the original except in the matter of illustrations, all of which are rendered in black and white. The binding, too, is simpler, being uniform with the binding of the one volume edition of The Modern Reader''s Bible. The text remains unchanged. " The version not only maintains the spirit and color, the rich humor and insight into human nature, of the original, but is of itself a literary delight." — The Argottaut. " Those who have at times attempted to struggle through the original text with the aid of a glossary, will welcome this new form." — Graphic, Los Angeles. " Chaucer is now readable by hundreds where before he was not accessible to dozens. The book is a veritable mine of good stories. . . . The volume can be heartily recommended to all lovers of the lasting and the permanent in literature." — Ke7itucky Post. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York NEW POEMS AND PLAYS Philip, the King and other Poems By JOHN MASEFIELD Clothy i2mo, $1.25 net Mr. Masefield's new poetical drama again affirms his impor- tant position in the literature of to-day. In the volume are new poems of the sea, lyrics and a powerful poem on the present war. Plaster Saints By ISRAEL ZANGWILL Cloth, i2mo, $1.2$ net A new play of deep social significance. The Melting Pot By ISRAEL ZANGWILL Revised edition. Cloth, i2mo. This is a revised edition of what is perhaps Mr. Zangwill's most popular play. Numerous changes have been made in the text, which has been considerably lengthened thereby. 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Though Mr. Aiken has been writing for a number of years, Earth Triumphant and Other Tales in Verse is his first published book. In it are contained, in addition to the several narratives of m.od- em life, a number of shorter lyrics. It is a volume distinguished by originality and power. Van Zom: A Comedy in Three Acts By EDWIN A. ROBINSON Cloth, i2mo, $1.25 net This play makes delightful reading and introduces in the person of its author a playwright of considerable promise. Mr. Robin- son tells a modern story, one which by a clever arrangement of incident and skillful characterization arouses strongly the reader's curiosity and keeps it unsatisfied to the end. The dialogue is bright and the construction of the plot shows the work of one well versed in the technique of the drama. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York RABINDRANATH TAGORE'S NEW DRAMA The King of the Dark Chamber By RABINDRAI^TATH TAGORE Nobel Prizeman in Literature, 19 13; Author of "Gitan- gaH," "The Gardener/' "The Crescent Moon," " Sadhana," " Chitra," " The Post-Office," etc. Cloth 12 mo, $1.25 neL "The real poetical imagination of it is unchangeable; the allegory, subtle and profound and yet simple, is cast into the form of a dramatic narrative, which moves with imconventional freedom to a finely impressive climax; and the reader, who began in idle curiosity, finds his intelligence more and more engaged until, when he turns the last page, he has the feeling of one who has been moving in worlds not realized, and communing with great if mysterious presences." The London Globe. 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