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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2011 with funding from 
 The Library of Congress 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/poemsofprogressn01wilc 
 
^^^T%^~<^_ ^-^^ 
 
POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 AND 
 
 NEW THOUGHT PASTELS 
 
 BY 
 
 ELLA WHEELER WILCOX 
 
 Chicago : 
 
 W. B. CONKEY COMPANY 
 
 Publishers 
 

 COPYRIGHT, 1909, 
 BY 
 
 Ella Wheeler Wilcox 
 
 I>6 W A»\ 
 
 APR 24 \U09 
 
 CLASS CU **<L Nu ' 
 
PREFACE 
 
 LOVE'S LANGUAGE 
 
 When silence flees before the voice of Love, 
 Of what expression does that god approve? 
 Is dulcet song or flowing verse his choice, 
 Or stately prose, made regal by his voice? 
 Speaks Love in couplets, or in epics grand? 
 And is love humble, or does he command ? 
 
 There is no language that Love does not speak 
 
 To-day commanding and to-morrow meek, 
 
 One hour laconic and the next verbose, 
 
 With hope triumphant and with doubt morose, 
 
 His varying moods all forms of speech employ. 
 
 To give expression to his painful joy, 
 
 To voice the phases of his joyful pain, 
 
 He rings the changes on the poet's strain. 
 
 Yet not in epic, epigram or verse 
 
 Can Love the passion of his heart rehearse. 
 
 All speech, all language, is inadequate, 
 
 There are no words with Love commensurate. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Preface 
 
 Five Kisses 7 
 
 The Land Between 10 
 
 Aristarchus 11 
 
 Love's Mirage 13 
 
 The Need of the World 14 
 
 The Gulf Stream 16 
 
 Forbidden Speech 17 
 
 The Ghost 18 
 
 Reincarnation 20 
 
 A Man's Last Love 22 
 
 A Holiday 23 
 
 Love's Ways 25 
 
 Words and Thoughts 26 
 
 Remembered 27 
 
 Helen of Troy 28 
 
 Lais When Young 29 
 
 Lais When Old 30 
 
 At Bay 31 
 
 Holiday Songs 32 
 
 How Will It Be 34 
 
 Astrolabius 35 
 
 Competition 37 
 
 Sleep's Treachery 39 
 
 Art Versus Cupid 40 
 
 The Revolt of Vashti 46 
 
 The Choosing of Esther 49 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Honeymoon Scene 53 
 
 The Cost 58 
 
 Retrospection 60 
 
 The House of Life 61 
 
 The Voice 63 
 
 God's Answer 65 
 
 The Edict of the Sex 66 
 
 The World Child 68 
 
 The Goal 69 
 
 On Seeing the House of Julia at Herculaneum 70 
 
 A Prayer 71 
 
 What is Right Living , 72 
 
 Justice 73 
 
 Time's Gaze 74 
 
 The Two Ages 75 
 
 Love, Time and Will 77 
 
 The Worker and the Work 78 
 
 Art Thou Alive 80 
 
 Today 81 
 
 The Ladder 82 
 
 Who Is a Christian 83 
 
 The Goal * 84 
 
 The Spur 86 
 
 Awakened 87 
 
 Shadows 89 
 
 The New Commandment 90 
 
 Summer Dreams 91 
 
 The Breaking of Chains 92 
 
 December 94 
 
 The Way 95 
 
 The Leader To Be 96 
 
 The Greater Love 98 
 
 Thank God for Life 99 
 
 The Law 100 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Time Enough 102 
 
 New Year's Day 103 
 
 Life Is a Privilege 104 
 
 In an Old Art Gallery 106 
 
 True Brotherhood 106 
 
 The Decadent 107 
 
 Lord, Speak Again 108 
 
 My Heaven 110 
 
 Life Ill 
 
 God's Kin 112 
 
 Conquest 113 
 
 The Statue 114 
 
 Sirius 115 
 
 At Fontainebleau 117 
 
 The Masquerade 118 
 
 Sympathy 119 
 
 Intermediary 120 
 
 Life's Car 121 
 
 Opportunity 122 
 
 The Age of Motored Things 123 
 
 New Year 124 
 
 Disarmament 125 
 
 Existence 126 
 
 The Heights 127 
 
 The Hymn of the Republic 129 
 
 The Radiant Christ 131 
 
 The Call 133 
 
 A Little Song 134 
 
 The Birth of Jealousy 135 
 
 Summer's Farewell 137 
 
POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 FIVE KISSES 
 I 
 
 THE MOTHER'S KISS 
 
 Love breathed a secret to her listening heart, 
 
 And said, "Be silent." Though she guarded it, 
 And dwelt as one within a world apart, 
 
 Yet sun and star seemed by that secret lit ; 
 And where she passed, each whispering wind ablow, 
 
 And every little blossom in the sod, 
 Called joyously to her, "We know, we know, 
 
 For are we not the intimates of God ?" 
 Life grew so radiant and so opulent, 
 
 That when her fragile body and her brain 
 By mortal throes of agony were rent, 
 
 She felt a curious rapture in her pain. 
 Then after anguish came the supreme bliss — 
 They brought the little baby for her kiss. 
 
 II 
 
 The betrothal 
 
 There was a quiet pause between the dances ; 
 
 Without, somewhere, a tinkling fountain played. 
 The dusky path was lit by ardent glances 
 
 As forth they fared, a lover and a maid. 
 
 7 
 
8 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 He chose a nook from curious eyes well hidden, 
 
 All redolent with sweet midsummer charm, 
 And by the great primeval instinct bidden, 
 
 He drew her in the shelter of his arm. 
 The words, that long deep in his heart had trembled, 
 
 Found sudden utterance, and made love's demand. 
 By feigned denials, she at first dissembled, 
 
 Refused her lips and half withdrew her hand. 
 Then murmured "Yes," and yielded, woman fashion, 
 Her virgin mouth to Young Love's kiss of passion. 
 
 Ill 
 The bridal kiss 
 
 As fleecy clouds trail back across the skies 
 
 Showing the sweet young moon in azure space, 
 The lifted veil revealed her shining face — 
 
 A sudden wonder, to his eager eyes. 
 
 In that familiar beauty lurked surprise, 
 
 For now the wife stood in the maiden's place, 
 With conscious dignity, and woman's grace, 
 
 And love's large pride, grown trebly fair and wise. 
 
 The world receded, leaving them alone. 
 
 The universe was theirs, from sphere to sphere ; 
 And life assumed new meaning and new worth. 
 
 Love held no privilege they did not own, 
 
 And when they kissed each other without fear, 
 They understood why God had made the earth. 
 
 IV 
 
 DOMESTIC BUSS 
 
 Sequestered in their calm domestic bower, 
 They sat together — he in manhood's prime 
 
FIVE KISSES 
 
 And she a matron in her fullest flower. 
 
 The mantel clock gave forth a warning chime. 
 She put her work aside ; his bright cigar 
 
 Grew pale and crumbled in an ashen heap. 
 The lights went out, save one remaining star 
 
 That watched beside the children in their sleep. 
 She hummed a little song, and nestled near 
 
 As, side by side, they went to their repose. 
 His arm about her waist, he whispered "Dear!" 
 
 And pressed his lips upon her mouth's full rose. 
 The sacred sweetness of their wedded life 
 Breathed in that kiss of husband and of wife. 
 
 OLD AGS 
 
 The young see heaven ; but to the old who wait 
 The final call, the hills of youth arise 
 More beautiful than shores of Paradise. 
 
 Beside a glowing and voracious grate 
 
 A dozing couple dream of Yesterday ; 
 The islands of a vanquished Past appear, 
 Bringing forgotten names and faces near ; 
 
 While lost in mist, the Present fades away. 
 
 The fragment winds of tender memories blow 
 Across the gardens of the Used-to-be ; 
 They smile into each other's eyes, and see 
 
 The bride and bridegroom of the long ago. 
 
 And tremulous lips, pressed close to faded cheek, 
 
 Love's silent tale of deathless passion speak. 
 
10 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 THE LAND BETWEEN 
 
 Between the little Here and larger Yonder, 
 There is a realm (or so one day I read) 
 
 Where faithful spirits love-enchained may wander, 
 Till some remembering soul from earth has fled. 
 
 Then, reunited, they go forth afar, 
 
 From sphere to sphere, where wondrous angels are. 
 
 Not many spirits in that realm are waiting ; 
 
 Not many pause upon its shores to rest ; 
 For only love, intense and unabating, 
 
 Can hold them from the longer, higher quest. 
 And after grief has wept itself to sleep, 
 Few hearts on earth their vital memories keep. 
 
 Should I pass on, across the mystic border, 
 Let thy love link me to that pallid land ; 
 
 I would not seek the heavens of finer order 
 Until thy barque had left this coarser strand. 
 
 How desolate such journeyings would be, 
 
 Though straight to Him, were they not shared by thee. 
 
 Wert thou first called (dear God, how could I bear it ?) 
 I should enchain thee with my love, I know. 
 
 Not great enough am I to free thy spirit 
 From all these tender ties, and bid thee go. 
 
 Nor would a soul, unselfish as thine own, 
 
 Forget so soon, and speed to heaven alone. 
 
ARISTARCHUS 11 
 
 On earth we find no joy in ways diverging-; 
 
 How could we find it in the worlds unseen ? 
 I know old memories from my bosom surging, 
 
 Would keep thee waiting in that Land Between, 
 Until together, side by side, we trod 
 A path of stars, in our great search for God. 
 
 ARISTARCHUS 
 (the mountain in the moon) 
 
 It was long and long ago our love began ; 
 
 It is something all unmeasured by Time's span. 
 In an era and a spot 
 By the modern world forgot, 
 
 We were lovers ere God named us maid and man. 
 
 Like the memory of music made by streams 
 All the beauty of that other love-life seems. 
 But I always thought it so, 
 And at last I know, I know — 
 We were lovers in the Land of Silver Dreams ! 
 
 When the moon was at the full I found the place : 
 Out, and out, across the seas of shining space, 
 On a quest that could not fail, 
 I unfurled my Memory sail, 
 And cast anchor in the Bay of Love's First Grace ! 
 
 At the foot of Aristarchus lies this bay. 
 
 (Oh, the wonder of that mountain far away!) 
 And the Land of Silver Dreams 
 All about it shines and gleams, 
 
 Where we loved, before God fashioned night or day. 
 
12 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 We were souls in eery bodies, made of light ; 
 
 We were winged, and we could speed from height to 
 height ; 
 
 And we built a nest called Hope 
 On the sheer moon mountain slope, 
 
 Where we sat and watched new worlds wheel into sight. 
 
 And we saw this little planet known as Earth, 
 When the mighty Mother Chaos gave it birth ; 
 But in love's conceit we thought 
 All these worlds from space were brought, 
 For no greater aim, or purpose, than our mirth. 
 
 And we laughed in love's abandon, and we sang 
 Till the echoing peaks of Aristarchus rang, 
 As hot-hissing comets came, 
 And white suns burst into flame, 
 And a myriad of worlds from darkness sprang. 
 
 I can show you when the moon is at its best, 
 Aristarchus and the spot we made our nest. 
 Oh, I always wondered why, 
 When the moon was in the sky, 
 I was stirred with such strange longings and unrest. 
 
 And I knew the subtle beauty and the force 
 Of our love was never bounded by earth's course ! 
 So with Memory's sail unfurled, 
 I went cruising past this world 
 And I followed, till I traced it to its source. 
 
LOVE'S MIRAGE 13 
 
 LOVE'S MIRAGE 
 
 Midway upon the route, he paused athirst ; 
 
 And suddenly across the wastes of heat, 
 
 He saw cool waters gleaming, and a sweet 
 Green oasis upon his vision burst. 
 A tender dream, long in his bosom nursed, 
 
 Spread love's illusive verdure for his feet ; 
 
 The barren sands changed into golden wheat ; 
 The way grew glad that late had seemed accursed. 
 
 She shone, the woman wonder, on his soul ; 
 The garden spot, for which men toil and wait ; 
 The house of rest, that is each heart's demand ; 
 But when, at last, he reached the gleaming goal, 
 He found, oh, cruel irony of fate, 
 But desert sun upon the desert sand. 
 
14 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 THE NEED OF THE WORLD 
 
 I know the need of the world, 
 
 Though it would not have me know. 
 
 It would hide its sorrow deep, 
 Where only God may go. 
 
 Yet its secret it can not keep ; 
 
 It tells it awake, or asleep, 
 
 It tells it to all who will heed, 
 
 And he who runs may read. 
 The need of the world I know. 
 
 I know the need of the world, 
 
 When it boasts of its wealth the loudest, 
 When it flaunts it in all men's eyes, 
 
 When its mien is the gayest and proudest. 
 Oh ! ever it lies — it lies, 
 For the sound of its laughter dies 
 In a sob and a smothered moan, 
 And' it weeps when it sits alone. 
 
 The need of the world I know. 
 
 I know the need of the world. 
 
 When the earth shakes under the tread 
 Of men who march to the fight, 
 
 When rivers with blood are red 
 And there is no law but might, 
 And the wrong way seems the right ; 
 When he who slaughters the most 
 Is all men's pride and boast, 
 
 The need of the world I know. 
 
THE NEED OF THE WORLD 15 
 
 I know the need of the world. 
 
 When it babbles of gold and fame, 
 It is only to lead us astray 
 
 From the thing that it dare not name 
 For this is the sad world's way. 
 Oh ! poor blind world grown gray 
 With the need of a thing so near, 
 With the want of a thing so dear. 
 
 The need pf the world I know. 
 
 The need of the world is love. 
 
 Deep under the pride of power, 
 Down under its lust of greed, 
 
 For the joys that last but an hour, 
 There lies forever its need. 
 For love is the law and the creed 
 And love is the unnamed goal 
 Of life, from man to the mole. 
 
 lyove is the need of the world. 
 
16 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 THE GULF STREAM 
 
 Skilled mariner, and counted sane and wise, 
 That was a curious thing which chanced to me, 
 So good a sailor on so fair a sea. 
 
 With favoring winds and blue unshadowed skies, 
 
 Led by the faithful beacon of Love's eyes, 
 
 Past reef and shoal, my life-boat bounded free 
 And fearless of all changes that might be 
 
 Under calm waves, where many a sunk rock lies. 
 
 A golden dawn ; yet suddenly my barque 
 Strained at the sails, as in a cyclone's blast ; 
 And battled with an unseen current's force, 
 For we had entered when the night was dark 
 That old tempestuous Gulf Stream of the Past. 
 But for love's eyes, I had not kept the course. 
 
FORBIDDEN SPEECH 17 
 
 FORBIDDEN SPEECH 
 
 The passion you forbade my lips to utter 
 Will not be silenced. You must hear it in 
 
 The sullen thunders, when they roll and mutter, 
 And when the tempest nears, with wail and din, 
 
 I know your calm forgetfulness is broken, 
 
 And to your heart you whisper, 
 "He has spoken." 
 
 All nature understands and sympathizes 
 With human passion. When the restless sea 
 
 Turns in its futile search for peace, and rises 
 To plead and to pursue, it speaks for me. 
 
 And with each desperate billow's anguish fretting 
 
 Your heart must tell you, 
 
 "He is not forgetting" 
 
 When unseen hands in lightning strokes are writing, 
 Mysterious words, upon a cloudy scroll, 
 
 Know that my pent-up passion is indicting 
 A cipher message for your listening soul. 
 
 And when the lawless winds rush by you shrieking, 
 
 Let your heart say, 
 
 "Now his despair is speaking." 
 
 Love comes, nor goes, at beck or call of reason ; 
 
 Nor is Love silent, though it says no word. 
 By day or night, in any clime or season, 
 
 A dominating passion must be heard. 
 
18 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 So shall you hear, through Junes and through De- 
 cembers, 
 The voice of Nature saying, 
 "He remembers." 
 
 THE GHOST 
 
 Through the open gate of Dreamland 
 Came a ghost of long ago, long ago. 
 
 When I wakened, all unheeding 
 
 Was the phantom to my pleading, 
 For he would not turn and go. 
 
 But beside me all the day 
 
 In my work, and in my play, 
 
 Trod this ghost of long ago, long ago. 
 
 Not a vague and pallid phantom 
 
 Was this ghost that came to me, followed me ; 
 Though he rose from regions haunted, 
 Though he came unbid, unwanted, 
 
 He was very fair to see. 
 Like the radiant sun in space 
 Was the halo round the face 
 
 Of that ghost that came to me, followed me. 
 
 And he wore no shroud or cerecloth, 
 
 As he wandered at my side, close beside. 
 
 He was clothed in royal splendor, 
 
 And his eyes were deep and tender, 
 While he walked in stately pride. 
 
THE GHOST 19 
 
 And he seemed like some great king, 
 Not afraid of anything, 
 
 As he wandered at my side, close beside. 
 
 Then I turned to him, commanding 
 
 That he go the way he came, whence he came ; 
 
 But he answered me in sorrow, 
 
 "May the Past not seek to borrow 
 From the Present, without blame, 
 
 Just one memory from its store, 
 
 Ere it goes to come no more, 
 
 Back the pathway that it came, whence it came?" 
 
 Then, ashamed of my full coffers, 
 
 I gave forth from Memory's hold (wondrous hold!) 
 All I owed of tax, and duty, 
 For remembered hours of beauty, 
 
 Which I paid in thoughts of gold. 
 Yet my Present seemed to be, 
 Richer still for all the fee 
 
 I gave forth from Memory's hold (wondrous hold!) 
 
20 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 REINCARNATION 
 
 He slept as weary toilers do ; 
 
 She gazed up at the moon. 
 He stirred and said, "Wife, come to bed ;" 
 
 She answered, "Soon, full soon." 
 {Oh, that strange mystery of the dead moon's face!) 
 
 Her cheek was wan ; her wistful mouth 
 
 Was lifted like a cup. 
 The moonfull night dripped liquid light ; 
 
 She seemed to quaff it up. 
 {Oh, that unburied corpse that lies in space!) 
 
 Her life had held but drudgery; 
 
 She spelled her Bible through. 
 Of book and lore she knew no more 
 
 Than little children do. 
 {Oh, the wierd wonder of that pallid sphere!) 
 
 Her youth had* been a leaden sky 
 
 Starred by no holiday, 
 And she had wed for roof and bread ; 
 
 She gave her work in pay. 
 {Oh, the moon memories, vague and sweet and dear!) 
 
 She drank the night's insidious wine, 
 
 And saw another scene — 
 A stately room, rare flowers in bloom, 
 
 Herself in silken sheen. 
 {Oh, vast the chambers of the moon and wide!) 
 
REINCARNATION 21 
 
 A step drew near, a curtain stirred ; 
 
 She shook with sweet alarms. 
 Oh, splendid face ! oh, manly grace ! 
 
 Oh, strong outreaching arms ! 
 (Oh, silent moon, what secrets do you hide!) 
 
 The burning lips of thirsting love 
 
 Were parched with passion's drouth. 
 As the bee knows where honey grows, 
 
 They sought her cheek, her mouth. 
 (Oh, the dead moon holds many a dead delight!) 
 
 The sleeper stirred and gruffly spoke : 
 "Come, wife ! Where have you been ?" 
 
 She whispered low, "Dear God, I go — 
 But 'tis the seventh sin." 
 
 (Oh, the sad secrets of that orb of white!) 
 
22 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 A MAN'S LAST LOVE 
 
 Like the tenth wave that offers to the shore 
 
 Accumulated opulence and force, 
 So does my heart, which thought it loved of yore, 
 
 Convey increasing passion down the course 
 Of time to proffer thee. 
 
 Oh, not the faint 
 
 First ripple of the sea should be its pride, 
 But the great climax of its unrestraint, 
 
 Which culminates in one commanding tide. 
 
 The lesser billows of each crude emotion 
 Break on life's strand, recede and then unite 
 
 With love's large sea, and to some late devotion, 
 Unrecognized, they bring their lost delight. 
 
 So all the vanished fancies of my past 
 
 Live yet in this one passion, grand and vast. 
 
A HOLIDAY 23 
 
 A HOLIDAY 
 
 The Wife 
 
 The house is like a garden, 
 
 The children are the flowers; 
 The gardener should come, methinks, 
 
 And walk among his bowers. 
 Oh, lock the door on worry, 
 
 And shut your cares away ! 
 Not time of year, but love and cheer, 
 
 Will make a holiday. 
 
 The Husband 
 Impossible ! You women do not know 
 The toil it takes to make a business grow. 
 I cannot join you until very late, 
 So hurry home, nor let the dinner wait. 
 
 The Wife 
 
 The feast will be like Hamlet, 
 
 Without a Hamlet part. 
 The home is but a house, dear, 
 
 Till you supply the heart. 
 The Christmas gift I long for, 
 
 You need not toil to buy. 
 Oh, give me back one thing I lack — 
 
 The love-light in your eye! 
 
 The Husband 
 Of course I love you, and the children too ; 
 Be sensible, my dear ; it is for you 
 
24 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 I work so hard to make my business pay. 
 There now, run home; enjoy your holiday. 
 
 The Wife (turning away) 
 
 He does not mean to wound me, 
 
 I know his heart is kind. 
 Alas, that men can love us, 
 
 And be so blind, so blind ! 
 A little time for pleasure, 
 
 A little time for play, 
 A word to prove the life of love 
 
 And frighten care away, 
 Though poor my lot in some small cot — 
 
 That were a holiday. 
 
 The Husband (musing) 
 
 She has not meant to wound me or to vex. 
 Zounds ! but 'tis difficult to please the sex. 
 I've housed and gowned her like a very queen, 
 Yet there she goes with discontented mien. 
 I gave her diamonds only yesterday. 
 Some women are like that, do what you may. 
 
LOVE'S WAY 25 
 
 LOVE'S WAYS 
 
 Love gives us curious potions of delight, 
 
 Of pain and ecstacy, and peace and care, 
 Love leads us upward, to the mountain height 
 
 And, like an angel, stands beside us there. 
 Then thrusts us, demon-like, in some abyss 
 
 Where, in the darkness of despair, we grope 
 Till, suddenly, love greets us with a kiss 
 
 And guides us back to flowery fields of hope. 
 
 Love makes all wisdom seem but poorest folly, 
 And yet the simplest mind, with love grows wise. 
 
 The gayest heart, he teaches melancholy ; 
 Yet glorifies the erstwhile brooding eyes. 
 
 Love lives on change, and yet at change love mocks, 
 
 For love's whole life, is one great paradox. 
 
26 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 WORDS AND THOUGHTS 
 
 He said, as he sat in her theater box 
 
 Between the acts : "What beastly weather ! 
 How like a parrot the lover talks. 
 And the lady is tame, and the villain stalks. 
 I hope they finally die together." 
 
 He thought: "You are fair as the dawn's first ray; 
 
 I know the angels keep guard above you. 
 And so I chatter of weather and play, 
 While all the time I am mad to say, 
 
 'I love you, love you, love you.' " 
 
 He said : "The season is almost run. 
 
 How glad w r e are when the farce is over, 
 For the toil of pleasure is more than its fun, 
 And what is it all when all is done, 
 
 But the stick of a rocket that has descended." 
 
 He thought : "O God, to be off somewhere, 
 Afar with you from this scene of fashion ; 
 
 To know you were mine and to have you care, 
 
 And to lose myself in the crimson snare 
 Of your lips in a kiss of passion." 
 
 He said : "You are going abroad, no doubt, 
 The land of Liberty coldly scorning; 
 
 I, too, shall journey a bit about, 
 
 From Wall Street up by the L road out 
 To Harlem — and down each morning." 
 
REMEMBERED 27 
 
 He thought : "It must follow on land or sea, 
 This pent-up, passionate, dumb devotion, 
 Till the cry of a rapture that may not be 
 Shall reach your heart from the heart of me, 
 And stir you with strange emotion." 
 
 REMEMBERED 
 
 His art was loving; Eres set his sign 
 
 Upon that youthful forehead, and he drew 
 The hearts of women, as the sun draws dew. 
 
 Love feeds love's thirst as wine feeds love of wine; 
 
 Nor is there any potion from the vine 
 
 Which makes men drunken like the subtle brew 
 Of kisses crushed by kisses ; and he grew 
 
 Inebriated with that draught divine. 
 
 Yet in his sober moments, when the sun 
 Of radiant summer paled to lonely fall, 
 
 And passion's sea had grown an ebbing tide, 
 From out the many, Memory singled one 
 
 Full cup that seemed the sweetest of them all — 
 The warm red month that mocked him and denied. 
 
28 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 HELEN OF TROY 
 
 ON THE ISLE OF CRANAE 
 
 The world an abject vassal to her charms, 
 And kings competing for a single smile, 
 Yet love she knew not, till upon this isle 
 
 She gave surrender to abducting arms. 
 
 Not Theseus, who plucked her lips' first kiss, 
 Not Menelaus, lawful mate and spouse, 
 Such answering passion in her heart could rouse, 
 
 Or wake such tumult in her soul as this. 
 
 Let come what will, let Greece and Asia meet, 
 Let heroes die and kingdoms run with gore ; 
 Let devastation spread from shore to shore — 
 
 Resplendent Helen finds her bondage sweet. 
 
 The whole world fights her battles, while she lies 
 
 Sunned in the fervor of young Paris' eyes. 
 
 ON THE ISLE OF RHODES 
 
 The battles ended, ardent Paris dead, 
 
 Of faithful Menelaus long bereft, 
 
 Time is the only suitor who is left : 
 Helen survives, with youth and beauty fled. 
 By hate remembered, but by love forgot, 
 
 Dethroned and driven from her high estate, 
 
 Unhappy Helen feels the lash of Fate 
 And knows at last an unloved woman's lot. 
 The Grecian marvel, and the Trojan joy, 
 
LAIS WHEN YOUNG 29 
 
 The world's fair wonder, from her palace flies. 
 The furies follow, and great Helen dies, 
 A death of horror, for the pride of Troy. 
 
 Yet Time, like Menelaus, all forgives. 
 Helen, immortal in her beauty, lives. 
 
 LAIS WHEN YOUNG 
 
 Lais when young, and all her charms in flower, 
 Lais, whose beauty was the fateful light 
 That led great ships to anchor in the night 
 
 And bring their priceless cargoes to her bower, 
 
 Lais yet found her cup of sweet turned sour. 
 Great Plato's pupil, from his lofty height, 
 Zenocrates, unmoved, had seen the white 
 
 Sweet wonder of her, and defied her power. 
 
 She snared the world in nets of subtle wiles : 
 The proud, the famed, all clamored at her gate ; 
 Dictators plead, inside her portico; 
 Wisdom sought madness, in her favoring smiles ; 
 Now was she made the laughing-stock of fate : 
 One loosed her clinging arms, and bade her go. 
 
30 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 LAIS WHEN OLD 
 
 Lais, when old and all her beauty gone, 
 
 Lais, the erstwhile courted pleasure queen, 
 Walked homeless through Corinth. One mocked her 
 mien — 
 One tossed her coins ; she took them and passed on. 
 Down by the harbor sloped a terraced lawn, 
 
 Where fountains played; she paused to view the 
 
 scene. 
 A marble palace stood in bowers of green. 
 'Twas here of old she reveled till the dawn. 
 
 Through yonder portico her lovers came — 
 Hero and statesman, athlete, merchant, sage; 
 
 They flung the whole world's treasures at her feet 
 To buy her favor and exalt her shame. 
 
 She spat upon her dole of coins in rage 
 And faded like a phantom down the street. 
 
AT BAY 31 
 
 AT BAY 
 
 Wife 
 
 Reach out your arms, and hold me close and fast. 
 Tell me there are no memories of your past 
 That mar this love of ours, so great, so vast. 
 
 Husband 
 
 Some truths are cheapened when too oft averred. 
 Does not the deed speak louder than the word ? 
 ( Dear God, that old dream woke again and stirred. ) 
 
 Wife 
 
 As you love me, you never loved before ? 
 Though oft you say it, say it yet once more. 
 My heart is jealous of those days of yore. 
 
 Husband 
 
 Sweet wife, dear comrade, mother of my child, 
 
 My life is yours by memory undefined. 
 
 (It stirs again, that passion brief and wild.) 
 
 Wife 
 
 You never knew a happier hour than this ? 
 We two alone, our hearts surcharged with bliss, 
 Nor other kisses, sweet as my own kiss? 
 
 Husband 
 
 I was a thirsty field, long parched with drouth ; 
 You were the warm rain, blowing from the south. 
 (But, ah, the crimson madness of her mouth !) 
 
 3 
 
32 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 Wife 
 You would not, if you could, go down life's track 
 For just one little moment and bring back 
 Some vanished rapture that you miss or lack ? 
 
 Husband 
 I am content. You are my life, my all. 
 (One burning hour, but one, could I recall; 
 God, how men lie when driven to the wall!) 
 
 HOLIDAY SONGS 
 
 I 
 Sailing away on a summer sea, 
 
 Out of the bleak March weather ; 
 Drifting away for a loaf and play, 
 
 Just you and I together ; 
 And it's good-bye worry and good-bye hurry 
 And never a care have we ; 
 With the sea below and the sun above 
 And nothing to do but dream and love, 
 
 Sailing away together. 
 
 Sailing away from the grim old town 
 
 And tasks the town calls duty; 
 Sailing away from walls of gray 
 
 To a land of bloom and beauty, 
 And it's good-bye to letters from our lessers and our 
 
 betters, 
 To the cold world's smile or its frown. 
 We sail away on a sunny track 
 To find the summer and bring it back 
 
 And love is our only duty. 
 
HOLIDAY SONGS 33 
 
 II 
 
 Afloat on a sea of passion 
 
 Without a compass or chart, 
 But the glow of your eye shows the sun is high, 
 
 By the sextant of my heart. 
 I know we are nearing the tropics 
 
 By the languor that round us lies, 
 And the smile on your mouth says the course is south 
 
 And the port is Paradise. 
 
 We have left gray skies behind us, 
 
 We sail under skies of blue ; 
 You are off with me on lovers' sea, 
 
 And I am away with you. 
 We have not a single sorrow, 
 
 And I have but one fear — 
 That my lips may miss one offered kiss 
 
 From the mouth that is smiling near. 
 
 There is no land of winter ; 
 
 There is no world of care; 
 There is bloom and mirth all over the earth, 
 
 And love, love everywhere. 
 Our boat is the barque of Pleasure, 
 
 And whatever port we sight 
 The touch of your hand will make the land 
 
 The Harbor of Pure Delight. 
 
34 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 HOW WILL IT BE? 
 
 How will it be when one of us alone 
 
 Goes on that strange, last journey of the soul, 
 
 That voyage on which no comradeship is known ? 
 
 Will our dear sea sing in the old sweet tone, 
 Though one sits stricken where its billows roll ? 
 Will space be dumb, or from the mystic pole 
 
 Will whisperings of love be backward blown. 
 
 When our united lives are wrenched apart, 
 
 And day no more means sweet companionship; 
 When fervent night, and lovely languorous dawn, 
 Are only memories to one sad heart, 
 
 And but in dreams fond kisses burn the lip, 
 
 Dear God, how can this same fair world move on ? 
 
ASTROLABIUS 35 
 
 ASTROLABIUS 
 (the child of aboard and HEXOISS) 
 
 I 
 
 Wrenched from a passing comet in its flight, 
 By that great force of two mad hearts aflame, 
 A soul incarnate, back to earth you came, 
 
 To glow like star-dust for a little night. 
 
 Deep shadows hide you wholly from our sight ; 
 The centuries leave nothing but your name, 
 Tinged with the luster of a splendid shame, 
 
 That blazed oblivion with rebellious light. 
 
 The mighty passion that became your cause, 
 
 Still burns its lengthening path across the years ; 
 
 We feel its raptures, and we see its tears 
 And ponder on its retributive laws. 
 
 Time keeps that deathless story ever new ; 
 
 Yet finds no answer, when we ask of you. 
 
 II 
 
 At Argenteuil, 1 saw the lonely cell 
 Where Heloise dreamed through her broken rest, 
 That baby lips pulled at her undried breast. 
 
 It needed but my woman's heart to tell 
 
 Of those long vigils and the tears that fell 
 When aching arms reached out in fruitless quest, 
 As after flight, wings brood an empty nest. 
 
 (So well I know that sorrow, ah, so well.) 
 
36 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 Across the centuries there comes no sound 
 Of that vast anguish ; not one sigh or word 
 Or echo of the mother loss has stirred, 
 
 The sea of silence, lasting and profound. 
 Yet to each heart, that once has felt this grief, 
 Sad Memory restores Time's missing leaf. 
 
 Ill 
 
 But what of you ? Who took the mother's place 
 When sweet expanding love its object sought? 
 Was there a voice to tell her tragic lot, 
 
 And did you ever look upon her face ? 
 
 Was yours a cloistered seeking after grace? 
 Or in the flame of adolescent thought 
 Were Abelard's departed passions caught 
 
 To burn again in you and leave their trace ? 
 
 Conceived in nature's bold primordial way 
 (As in their revolutions, suns create), 
 You came to earth, a soul immaculate, 
 
 Baptized in fire, with some great part to play. 
 What was that part, and wherefore hid from us, 
 Immortal mystery, Astrolabius! 
 
COMPLETION 37 
 
 COMPLETION 
 
 When I shall meet God's generous dispensers 
 
 Of all the riches in the heavenly store, 
 Those lesser gods, who act as Recompensers 
 
 For loneliness and loss upon this shore, 
 Methinks abashed, and somewhat hesitating, 
 
 My soul its wish and longing will declare. 
 Lest they reply : "Here are no bounties waiting : 
 
 We gave on earth, your portion and your share." 
 
 Then shall I answer : "Yea, I do remember 
 
 The many blessings to my life allowed ; 
 My June was always longer than December, 
 
 My sun was always stronger than my cloud, 
 My joy was ever deeper than my sorrow, 
 
 My gain was ever greater than my loss, 
 My yesterday seemed less than my tomorrow, 
 
 The crown looked always larger than the cross. 
 
 "I have known love, in all its radiant splendor, 
 
 It shone upon my pathway to the end. 
 I trod no road that did not bloom with tender 
 
 And fragrant blossoms, planted by some friend. 
 And those material things we call successes, 
 
 In modest measure, crowned my earthly lot. 
 Yet was there one sweet happiness that blesses 
 
 The life of woman, which to me came not. 
 
38 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 "I knew the hope of motherhood ; a season 
 
 I felt a fluttering heart beat 'neath my own ; 
 A little cry — then silence. For that reason 
 
 I dare, to you, my only wish make known. 
 The babe who grew to angelhood in heaven, 
 
 I never watched unfold from child to man. 
 And so I ask, that unto me be given 
 
 That motherhood, which was God's primal plan. 
 
 "All womankind He meant to share its glories ; 
 
 He meant us all to nurse our babes to rest. 
 To croon them songs, to tell them sleepy stories, 
 
 Else why the wonder of a woman's breast ? 
 He must provide for all earth's cheated mothers 
 
 In His vast heavens of shining sphere on sphere, 
 And with my son, there must be many others — 
 
 My spirit children who will claim me here. 
 
 "Fair creatures by my loving thoughts created — 
 
 Too finely fashioned for a mortal birth — 
 Between the borders of two worlds they waited 
 
 Until they saw my spirit leave the earth. 
 In God's great nursery they must be waiting 
 
 To welcome me with many an infant wile. 
 Now let me go and satisfy this longing 
 
 To mother children for a little while.' , 
 
SLEEP'S TREACHERY 39 
 
 SLEEP'S TREACHERY 
 
 As the gray twilight, tiptoed down the deep 
 And shadowy valley, to the day's dark end, 
 She whom I thought my ever-faithful friend, 
 
 Fair-browed, calm-eyed and mother-bosomed Sleep, 
 
 Met me with smiles. "Poor longing heart, I keep 
 Sweet joy for you," she murmured. "I will send 
 One whom you love, with your own soul to blend 
 
 In visions, as the night hours onward creep." 
 
 I trusted her ; and watched by starry beams, 
 I slumbered soundly, free from all alarms. 
 
 Then not my love, but one long banished came, 
 Led by false Sleep, down secret stairs of dreams 
 And clasped me, unresisting in fond arms. 
 
 Oh, treacherous sleep — to sell me to such shame! 
 
40 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 ART VERSUS CUPID 
 
 [A room in a private house. A maiden sitting be- 
 fore a grate fire meditating.] 
 
 Maiden 
 
 Now have I fully fixed upon my part. 
 Good-bye to dreams; for me a life of art! 
 Beloved art ! Oh, realm serene and fair, 
 Above the mean and sordid world of care, 
 Above earth's small ambitions and desires ! 
 Art ! art ! the very word my soul inspires ! 
 From foolish memories it sets me free. 
 Not what has been, but that which is to be 
 Absorbs me now. Adieu to vain regret ! 
 The bow is tensely drawn — the target set. 
 [A knock at the door.] 
 
 Maid (aside). 
 
 The night is dark and chill ; the hour is late. 
 
 (Aloud) 
 
 Who knocks upon my door? 
 
 A Voice Outside 
 
 'Tis I, your fate! 
 
 Maid 
 
 Thou dost deceive, not me, but thine own self. 
 My fate is not a wandering, vagrant elf. 
 My fate is here, within this throbbing heart 
 That beats alone for glory, and for art. 
 
ART VERSUS CUPID 41 
 
 Voice 
 
 [Another knock at door.] 
 Pray, let me in ; I am so faint and cold. 
 
 [Door is pushed ajar. Enter Cupid, who approaches 
 the fire with outstretched hands.] 
 
 Maid (indignantly) 
 
 Methinks thou art not faint, however cold, 
 But rather too courageous, and most bold ; 
 Surprisingly ill-mannered, sir, and rude, 
 Without an invitation to intrude 
 Into my very presence. 
 
 Cupid (warming his hands) 
 
 But, you see, 
 Girls never mind a little chap like me. 
 They're always watching for me on the sly, 
 And hoping I will call. 
 
 Maid (haughtily) 
 
 Indeed, not I! 
 My heart has listened to a sweeter voice, 
 A clarion call that gives command — not choice. 
 And I have answered to that call, "I come;" 
 To other voices shall my ears be dumb. 
 To art alone I consecrate my life — 
 Art is my spouse, and I his willing wife. 
 
 Cupid (slowly, gazing in the grate) 
 
 Art is a sultan, and you must divide 
 His love with many another ill-fed bride. 
 Now I know one who worships you alone. 
 
42 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 Maid ( impa tiently ) 
 
 I will not listen ! for the dice is thrown 
 
 And art has won me. On my brow some day 
 
 Shall rest the laurel wreath — 
 
 Cupid (sitting down and looking at maid critically) 
 
 Just let me say 
 I think sweet orange blossoms under lace 
 Are better suited to your type of face. 
 
 Maid (ignoring interruption) 
 I yet shall stand before an audience 
 That listens as one mind, absorbed, intense, 
 And with my genius I shall rouse its cheers, 
 Still it to silence, soften it to tears, 
 Or wake its laughter. Oh, the play ! the play ! 
 The play's the thing! My boy, the play!! 
 
 Cupid (suddenly clapping his hands) 
 
 Oh, say! 
 I know a splendid role for you to take, 
 And one that always keeps the house awake — 
 And calls for pretty dressing. Oh, it's great ! 
 
 Maid (excitedly) 
 Well, well, what is it ? Wherefore make me wait ? 
 
 Cupid (tapping his brow, thoughtfully) 
 How is it those lines run — oh, now I know ; 
 You make a stately entrance — measured — slow — 
 To stirring music ; then you kneel and say 
 Something about — to honor and obey — 
 For better and for worse — till death do part. 
 
 Maid (angrily) 
 Be still, you foolish boy ; that is not art. 
 
ART VERSUS CUPID 43 
 
 Cupid (seriously) 
 
 She needs great skill who takes the role of wife 
 In God's stupendous drama human life. 
 
 Maid (suddenly becoming serious) 
 
 So I once thought ! Oh, once my very soul 
 
 Was filled and thrilled with dreaming of that role. 
 
 Life seemed so wonderful ; it held for me 
 
 No purpose, no ambition, but to be 
 
 Loving and loved. My highest thought of fame 
 
 Was some day bearing my dear lover's name. 
 
 Alone, I ofttimes uttered it aloud, 
 
 Or wrote it down, half timid, and all proud 
 
 To see myself lost utterly in him: 
 
 As some small star might joy in growing dim 
 
 When sinking in the sun; or as the dew, 
 
 Forgetting the brief little life it knew 
 
 In space, might on the ocean's bosom fall 
 
 And ask for nothing — only to give all. - 
 
 Cupid (aside) 
 Now, that's the talk — it's music to my ear 
 After that stuff on "art" and a "career." 
 I hope she'll keep it up. 
 
 Maiden (continuing her reverie) 
 Again my dream 
 Shaped into changing pictures. I would seem 
 To see myself in beautiful array 
 Move down the aisle upon my wedding day ; 
 And then I saw the modest living-room 
 With lighted lamp, and fragrant plants in bloom, 
 And books and sewing scattered all about, 
 And just we two alone. 
 
44 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 Cupid {in glee aside) 
 
 There's not a doubt 
 I'll land her yet ! 
 
 Maiden 
 
 My dream kaleidoscope 
 Changed still again, and framed love's dearest hope — 
 The trinity of home ; and life was good 
 And all its deepest meaning understood. 
 
 [Sits lost in a dream. Behind scenes a voice sings a 
 lullaby, "Beautiful Land of Nod." Cupid in ecstasy 
 tiptoes about and clasps his hands in delight.] 
 
 Another scene ! a matron in her prime, 
 I saw myself glide peacefully with time 
 Into the quiet middle years, content 
 With simple joys the dear home circle lent. 
 My sons and daughters made my diadem ; 
 I saw my happy youth renewed in them. 
 The pain of growing old lost all its sting, 
 For Love stood near — in Winter, as in Spring. 
 
 [Cupid tiptoes to door and makes a signal. Maiden 
 starts up dramatically.] 
 
 'Twas but a dream ! I woke all suddenly. 
 
 The world had changed ! And now life means to me 
 
 My art — the stage — excitement and the crowd — 
 
 The glare of many foot-lights — and the loud 
 
 Applause of men, as I cry in rage, 
 
 "Give me the dagger !" or creep down the stage 
 
 In that sleep-walking scene. Oh, art like mine 
 
 Will send the chills down every listener's spine! 
 
ART VERSUS CUPID 45 
 
 And when I choose, salt tears shall freely flow 
 As in the moonlight I cry, "Romeo! Romeo! 
 Oh, wherefore art thou, Romeo ?" 
 
 Ay, 'tis done 
 My dream of home life. 
 
 Cupid 
 
 It is but begun. 
 
 Maiden 
 
 The heart but once can dream a dream so fair, 
 And so henceforth love thoughts I do forswear ; 
 Since faith in love has crumbled to the dust, 
 In fame alone, I put my hope and trust. 
 
 [Cupid at the door beckons excitedly. Enter lover 
 with outstretched arms.] 
 
 Cupid 
 
 Here's one who will explain yourself to you 
 And make that old sweet dream of love come true. 
 Fix up your foolish quarrel ; time is brief — 
 So waste no more of it in doubt or grief. 
 
 [The lovers meet and embrace.} 
 
 Cupid (in doorway') 
 
 Warm lip to lip, and heart to beating heart, 
 The cast is made — My Lady has her part. 
 
 CURTAIN 
 
46 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 THE REVOLT OF VASHTI 
 
 (from The drama of mizpah) 
 
 Ahasueras 
 
 Is this the way to greet thy loving spouse, 
 
 But now returned from scenes of blood and strife? 
 
 I pray thee raise thy veil and let me gaze 
 
 Upon that beauty which hath greater power 
 
 To conquer me than all the arts of war ! 
 
 Vashti 
 
 My beauty! Aye, my beauty! I do hold, 
 In thy regard, no more an honored place 
 Than yonder marble pillar, or the gold . 
 And jeweled wine cup which thy lips caress. 
 Thou would'st degrade me in the people's sight ! 
 
 Ahasueras 
 
 Degrade thee, Vashti ? Rather do I seek 
 
 To show my people who are gathered here 
 
 How, as the consort of so fair a queen, 
 
 I feel more pride than as the mighty king: 
 
 For there be many rulers on the earth, 
 
 But only one such queen. Come, raise thy veil ! 
 
 Vashti 
 
 Aye ! only one such queen ! A queen is one 
 Who shares her husband's greatness and his throne. 
 I am no more than yonder dancing girl 
 Who struts and smirks before a royal court ! 
 But I will loose my veil and loose my tongue ! 
 
THE REVOLT OF VASHTI 47 
 
 Now listen, sire — my master and my king; 
 And let thy princes and the court give ear ! 
 Tis time all heard how Vashti feels her shame. 
 
 Ahasueras 
 
 Shame is no word to couple with thy name ! 
 Shame and a spotless woman may not meet, 
 Even in a sentence. Choose another word. 
 
 Vashti 
 
 Aye, shame, my lord — there is no synonym 
 
 That can give voice to my ignoble state. 
 
 To be a thing for eyes to gaze upon, 
 
 Yet held an outcast from thy heart and mind ; 
 
 To hear my beauty praised but not my worth ; 
 
 To come and go at Pleasure's beck and call, 
 
 While barred from Wisdom's conclaves ! Think ye that 
 
 A noble calling for a noble dame ? 
 
 Why, any concubine amongst thy train 
 
 Could play my royal part as well as I — 
 
 Were she as fair ! 
 
 Ahasueras 
 
 Queen Vashti, art thou mad? 
 I would behead another did he dare 
 To so besmirch thee with comparison. 
 
 Vashti (to the court) 
 
 Gaze now your fill ! Behold Queen Vashti's eyes! 
 How large they gleam beneath her inch of brow ! 
 How like a great white star, her splendid face 
 Shines through the midnight forest of her hair ! 
 And see the crushed pomegranite of her mouth ! 
 Observe her arms, her throat, her gleaming breasts, 
 Whereon the royal jewels rise and fall! — 
 
48 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 And note the crescent curving of her hips, 
 And lovely limbs suggested 'neath her robes ! 
 Gaze, gaze, I say, for these have made her queen ! 
 She hath no mind, no heart, no dignity, 
 Worth royal recognition and regard; 
 But her fair body approbation meets 
 And whets the sated appetite of kings! 
 Now ye have seen what she was bid to show. 
 The queen hath played her part and begs to go. 
 
 Ahasueras 
 
 Aye, Vashti, go and never more return ! 
 Not only hast thou wronged thine own true lord, 
 And mocked and shamed me in the people's eyes, 
 But thou hast wronged all princes and all men 
 By thy pernicious and rebellious ways. 
 Queens act and subjects imitate. So let 
 Queen Vashti weigh her conduct and her words, 
 Or be no more called "queen !" 
 
 Vashti 
 
 I was a princess ere I was a queen, 
 
 And worthy of a better fate than this ! 
 
 There lies the crown that made me queen in name ! 
 
 Here stands the woman — wife in name alone! 
 
 Now, no more queen — nor wife — but woman still — 
 
 Aye, and a woman strong enough to be 
 
 Her own avenger. 
 
THE CHOOSING OF ESTHER 49 
 
 THE CHOOSING OF ESTHER 
 
 (from the drama of mizpah) 
 
 Ahasueras 
 
 Tell me thy name ! 
 
 Esther 
 My name, great sire, is Esther. 
 
 Ahasueras 
 
 So thou art Esther ? Esther ! 'tis a name 
 Breathed into sound as softly as a sigh. 
 A woman's name should melt upon the lips 
 Like Love's first kisses, and thy countenance 
 Is fit companion for so sweet a name ! 
 
 Esther 
 
 Thou art most kind. I would my name and face 
 Were mine own making and not accident. 
 Then I might feel elated at thy praise, 
 Where now I feel confusion. 
 
 Ahasueras 
 
 Thou hast wit 
 As well as beauty, Esther. Both are gems 
 That do embellish woman in man's sight. 
 Yet they are gems of second magnitude ! 
 Dost thou possess the one great perfect gem — 
 The matchless jewel of the world called love? 
 
50 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 Esther 
 
 Sire, in the heart of every woman dwells 
 That wondrous perfect gem! 
 
 Ahasueras 
 
 Then, Esther, speak! 
 And tell me what is love! I fain would know 
 Thy definition of that much-mouthed word, 
 By woman most employed — least understood. 
 
 Esther 
 What can a humble Jewish maiden know 
 That would instruct a warrior and a king? 
 I have but dreamed of love as maidens will, 
 While thou hast known its fulness. All the world 
 Loves Great Ahasueras! 
 
 Ahasueras 
 
 All the world 
 Fears great Ahasueras ! Kings, my child, 
 Are rarely loved as anything but kings. 
 Love, as I see it in the court and camp, 
 Means seeking royal favor. I would know 
 How love is fashioned in a maiden's dreams. 
 
 Esther 
 Sire, love seeks nothing that kings can bestow. 
 Love is the king of all kings here below ; 
 Love makes the monarch but a bashful boy, 
 Love makes the peasant monarch in his joy ; 
 Love seeks not place, all places are the same, 
 When lighted by the radiance of love's flame. 
 Who deems proud love could fawn to power and 
 
 splendor 
 Hath known not love, but some base-born pretender. 
 
THE CHOOSING OF ESTHER 51 
 
 A hastier as 
 
 If this be love, I would know more of it. 
 Speak on, fair Esther ! What is love beside ? 
 
 Esther 
 
 Love is in all things, all things are in love. 
 
 Love is the earth, the sea, the skies above ; 
 
 Love is the bird, the blossom, and the wind ; 
 
 Love hath a million eyes, yet love is blind ; 
 
 Love is a tempest, awful in its might ; 
 
 Love is the silence of a moon-lit night ; 
 
 Love is the aim of every human soul ; 
 
 And he who hath not loved hath missed life's goal ! 
 
 Ahasueras 
 
 But tell me of thyself, of thine own dreams ! 
 How wouldst thou love, and how be loved again ? 
 
 Esther 
 
 Who most doth love thinks least of love's return ; 
 She is content to feel the passion burn 
 In her own bosom, and its sacred fire 
 Consumes each selfish purpose and desire. 
 'Tis in the giving, love's best rapture lies, 
 Not in the counting of the things it buys. 
 
 Ahasueras 
 
 Yet, is there not vast anguish and despair 
 
 In love that finds no answering word or smile ? 
 
 Esther 
 
 So radiant is love, it lends a glow 
 
 To each dark sorrow and to every woe. 
 
 To love completely is to part with pain, 
 
52 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 Nor is there mortal who can love in vain. 
 Love is its own reward, it pays full measure, 
 And in love's sharpest grief lies subtlest pleasure. 
 
 Ahasueras 
 
 Methinks, a mighty warrior, lord or king 
 Must in thy fancy play the lover's part; 
 None else could wake such reverential thought. 
 
 Esther 
 
 When woman loves one born of lowly state, 
 
 Her thought gives crown and scepter to her mate ; 
 
 Yet be he king, or chief of some great clan, 
 
 She loves him but as woman loves a man. 
 
 Monarch or peasant, 'tis the same, I wis 
 
 When once she gives him love's surrendering kiss. 
 
HONEYMOON SCENE 53 
 
 HONEYMOON SCENE 
 
 (from the: drama of mizpah) 
 
 Ahasueras 
 
 What were thy thoughts, sweet Esther? Something 
 
 passed 
 Across thy face, that for a moment veiled 
 Thy soul from mine, and left me desolate. 
 Thy thoughts were not of me? 
 
 Esther 
 
 Aye, all of thee ! 
 I wondered, if in truth, thou were content 
 With me — thy choice. Was there no other one 
 Of all who passed before thee at thy court 
 Whose memory pursues thee with regret ? 
 
 Ahasueras 
 I do confess I much regret that day 
 And wish I could relive it. 
 
 Esther 
 
 Oh! My lord! 
 Ahasueras 
 Yea ! I regret those hours I wasted on 
 The poor procession that preceded thee. 
 Hadst thou come first, then all the added wealth 
 Of one long day of loving thee were mine — 
 A boundless fortune squandered. Though I live 
 To three score years and ten, as I do hope, 
 In wedded love beside thee, that one day 
 Was filched from me and cannot be restored. 
 
54 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 Esther 
 
 And then to think how frightened and abashed 
 I hung outside thy gates from early morn, 
 Not daring to go in and meet thine eyes, 
 Till pitying twilight clothed me in her veil, 
 And evening walked beside me to thy door. 
 
 Ahasueras 
 
 So it was thou, fair thief, who stole that day, 
 And made me poorer, by — how many hours ? 
 
 Esther 
 
 Full eight, I think. They seemed a hundred then, 
 And now time flies a hundred times too fast. 
 
 Ahasueras 
 
 Then eight more kisses do I claim from thee, 
 
 This very hour — first tithes of many due, 
 
 I shall exact these payments as I will, 
 
 And if they be not ready on demand, 
 
 I'll lock thee in the prison of my arms, 
 
 Like this — and take them so — and so — and so ! 
 
 Esther 
 
 But kings must think of other things than love 
 And live for other aims than happiness. 
 I would not drag thee from thy altitude 
 Of mighty ruler and great conqueror 
 To chain thee by my side. 
 
 Ahasueras 
 
 Such slavery 
 Would please me better than to conquer earth 
 Without thee, Esther. I have stood on heights 
 And heard the cheers of multitudes below ; 
 
HONEYMOON SCENE 55 
 
 Have known the loneliness of being great. 
 Now, let me live and love thee, like a man, 
 Forgetting I am king— 
 I am content. 
 
 Esther 
 Content is not the pathway to great deeds. 
 As man, I hold thee higher than all kings ; 
 As king, thou must stand higher than all men 
 In other eyes. Let no one say of me : 
 "She spoiled his greatness by her littleness ; 
 She made a languorous lover of a king, 
 And silenced war-cries on commanding lips — 
 With honeyed kisses ; made her woman's arms 
 Preferred to armor, and her couch to tents, 
 Until the kingdom, with no guiding hand, 
 Plunged down to ruin." 
 
 Ahasueras 
 Thou wouldst have me go — 
 So soon thy heart hath wearied ? 
 
 Esther 
 My heart is bursting with its love for thee ! 
 Canst thou not feel its fervor ? But great men 
 Need wiser guidance than a woman's heart. 
 My pride in thee is equal to my love, 
 And I would have thee greater than thou art — 
 Aye, greater than all other men on earth — 
 Though forced long years to feed my hungry heart 
 On food of memories and wine of tears, 
 Wert thou but winning glory and renown. 
 
 Ahasueras 
 Thou art most noble, Esther ; thou art fit 
 To be the consort of a king of kings. 
 
56 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 But I have chewed upon ambition's husks 
 
 And starved for love through all my manhood's years ; 
 
 And now the mighty gods have seen it fit 
 
 To spread love's banquet and to name thee host, 
 
 May I not feast my fill ? O Esther, take 
 
 The tempting nectar of those lips away 
 
 And give me wine to rouse the brute in me, 
 
 To make me thirst for blood instead of love ! 
 
 Wine ! Wine ! I say ! 
 
 Esther 
 
 Ahasueras, wait ! 
 Methinks good music is wine turned to sound. 
 Here comes thy minstrel with an offering 
 Pressed from the ripened fruit of my fond heart. 
 Mine own the words and mine the melody 
 And may it linger longer in thine ear 
 Than on thy lip would stay the taste of wine. 
 Sing on ! 
 
 Minstrel 
 
 When from the field returning, 
 Love is a warrior's yearning, 
 Love in his heart is burning, 
 
 Love is his dream. 
 Talk not to him of glory, 
 Speak not of faces gory, 
 Sing of love's tender story, 
 
 Make it thy theme. 
 Sing of his lady's tresses, 
 Sing of the smile that blesses, 
 Sing of the sweet caresses, 
 
 And yet again 
 Sing of fair children's faces, 
 
HONEYMOON SCENE 57 
 
 Sing of the dear home graces, 
 Sing till the vacant places, 
 
 Ring with thy strain. 
 Yet as the days go speeding, 
 Shall he arise unheeding 
 Love songs or words of pleading, 
 
 Strong in his might ! 
 Helmet and armor wearing, 
 Hies he to deeds of daring, 
 Forth to the battle faring, 
 
 Back to the fight. 
 Sing now of ranks contending, 
 Sing of loud voices blending, 
 Sing of great warriors sending 
 
 Death to their foes! 
 Sing of war missiles humming, 
 Strike into martial drumming, 
 Sing of great victory coming, 
 
 As forth he goes. 
 Back to the battle faring, 
 Back into deeds of daring, 
 
 Back to the fight. 
 
 Ahasueras 
 
 No less a lover but a greater man, 
 
 A better warrior and a nobler king, 
 
 I will be from this hour for thy dear sake. 
 
58 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 THE COST 
 
 God finished woman in the twilight hour 
 
 And said, "To-morrow thou shalt find thy place : 
 
 Man's complement, the mother of the race — 
 
 With love the motive power — 
 
 The one compelling power." 
 
 All night she dreamed and wondered. With the light 
 Her lover came — and then she understood 
 The purpose of her being. Life was good 
 
 And all the world seemed right — 
 
 And nothing was, but right. 
 
 She had no wish for any wider sway :. 
 By all the questions of the world unvexed, 
 Supremely loving and superbly sexed, 
 
 She passed upon her way — 
 
 Her feminine fair way. 
 
 But God neglected, when He fashioned man, 
 To fuse the molten splendor of his mind 
 With that sixth sense He gave to womankind. 
 
 And so He marred His plan — 
 
 Aye, marred His own great plan. 
 
 She asked so little, and so much she gave, 
 
 That man grew selfish : and she soon became, 
 
 To God's great sorrow and the whole world's shame, 
 
 Man's sweet and patient slave — 
 
 His uncomplaining slave. 
 
THE COST 59 
 
 Yet in the nights (oh! nights so dark and long) 
 She clasped her little children to her breast 
 And wept. And in her anguish of unrest 
 
 She thought upon her wrong ; 
 
 She knew how great her wrong. 
 
 And one sad hour, she said unto her heart, 
 "Since thou art cause of all my bitter pain, 
 I bid thee abdicate the throne : let brain 
 
 Rule now, and do his part — 
 
 His masterful strong part." 
 
 She wept no more. By new ambition stirred 
 Her ways led out, to regions strange and vast. 
 Men stood aside and watched, dismayed, aghast, 
 
 And all the world demurred — 
 
 Misjudged her, and demurred. 
 
 Still on and up, from sphere to widening sphere, 
 Till thorny paths bloomed with the rose of fame. 
 Who once demurred, now followed with acclaim : 
 
 The hiss died in the cheer — 
 
 The loud applauding cheer. 
 
 She stood triumphant in that radiant hour, 
 
 Man's mental equal, and competitor. 
 
 But ah ! the cost ! from out the heart of her 
 
 Had gone love's motive power — 
 
 Love's all-compelling power. 
 
60 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 RETROSPECTION 
 
 I look down the lengthening distance 
 Far back to youth's valley of hope. 
 
 How strange seemed the ways of existence, 
 How infinite life and its scope. 
 
 What dreams, what ambitions came thronging 
 
 To people a world of my own ! 
 How the heart in my bosom was longing, 
 
 For pleasures and places unknown. 
 
 But the hill tops of pleasure and beauty, 
 Were covered with mist at the dawn ; 
 
 And only the rugged road Duty 
 
 Shone clear, as my feet wandered on. 
 
 I loved not the path and its leading, 
 
 I hated the rocks and the dust ; 
 But a Voice from the Silence was pleading, 
 
 It spoke but one syllable— "Trust." 
 
 I saw as the morning grew older 
 The fair flowered hills of delight, 
 
 And the feet of my comrades grew bolder ; 
 They hurried away from my sight. 
 
 And when on the pathway I faltered, 
 
 And when I rebelled at my fate, 
 The Voice, with assurance unaltered, 
 
 Again spoke one syllable — "Wait." 
 
THE HOUSE OF LIFE 61 
 
 Along the hard highway I traveled, 
 And saw, with dim vision, how soon 
 
 The morning's gold locks were unraveled, 
 By ringers of amorous noon. 
 
 A turn in the pathway of duty — 
 
 I stood in the perfect day's prime, 
 Close, close to the hillside of beauty; 
 
 The Voice from the Silence said, "Climb." 
 
 The road to the Beautiful Regions 
 Lies ever through Duty's hard way. 
 
 Oh, ye who go searching in legions, 
 Know this and be patient to-day. 
 
 THE HOUSE OF LIFE 
 
 All wondering and eager eyed, within her portico, 
 
 I made my plea to Hostess Life, one morning long ago. 
 
 "Pray, show me this great house of thine, nor close a 
 
 single door; 
 But let me wander where I will and climb from floor to 
 
 floor! 
 For many rooms, and curious things, and treasures 
 
 great and small, 
 Within your spacious mansion lie, and I would see them 
 
 all." 
 Then Hostess Life turned silently, her searching gaze 
 
 on me, 
 And with no woid, she reached her hand and offered up 
 
 the key. 
 It opened first the door of Hope, an4 long I lingered 
 
 there, 
 
62 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 Until I spied the room of Dreams, just higher by a stair. 
 And then a door whereon the one word "Happiness" 
 
 was writ, 
 But when I tried the little key, I could not make it fit. 
 It turned the lock of Pleasure's room where first all 
 
 seemed so bright, 
 But after I had stayed awhile, it somehow lost its light. 
 And wandering down a lonely hall, I came upon a room 
 Marked "Duty," and I entered it, to lose myself in 
 
 gloom. 
 Along the shadowy halls I groped my weary way about 
 And found that from dull Duty's room a door of Toil 
 
 led out. 
 It led out to another door, whereon a crimson stain 
 Made sullenly against the dark, these words: "The 
 
 Room of Pain." 
 But, oh, the light ! the light ! the light ! that spilled down 
 
 from above, 
 And upward wound the stairs of Faith, right to the 
 
 tower of Love. 
 And when I came forth from that place, I tried the little 
 
 key, 
 And, lo ! the door of Happiness swung open, wide and 
 
 free. 
 
THE VOICE 63 
 
 THE VOICE 
 
 I dreamed a Voice, of one God-authorized, 
 
 Cried loudly thro' the world, "Disarm ! Disarm I" 
 
 And there was consternation in the camps ; 
 
 And men who strutted under braid and lace 
 
 Beat on their medaled breasts, and wailed, "Undone !" 
 
 The word was echoed from a thousand hills, 
 
 And shop and mill, and factory and forge, 
 
 Where throve the awful industries of death, 
 
 Hushed into silence. Scrawled upon the doors, 
 
 The passer read, "Peace bids her children starve." 
 
 But foolish women clasped their little sons 
 
 And wept for joy, not reasoning like men. 
 
 Again the Voice commanded : "Now go forth 
 And build a world for Progress and for Peace. 
 This work has waited since the earth was shaped ; 
 But men were fighting, and they could not toil. 
 The needs of life outnumber needs of death. 
 Leave death with God. Go forth, I say, and build." 
 
 And then a sudden, comprehensive joy 
 Shone in the eyes of men ; and one who thought 
 Only of conquests and of victories 
 Woke from his gloomy reverie and cried, 
 "Aye, come and build ! I challenge all to try. 
 And I will make a world more beautiful 
 Than Eden was before the serpent came." 
 
 5 
 
64 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 And like a running flame on western wilds, 
 Ambition spread from mind to listening mind, 
 And lo ! the looms were busy once again, 
 And all the earth resounded with men's toil. 
 
 Vast palaces of Science graced the world ; 
 Their banquet tables spread with feasts of truth 
 For all who hungered. Music kissed the air, 
 Once rent with boom of cannons. Statues gleamed 
 From wooded ways, where ambushed armies hid 
 In times of old. The sea and air were gay 
 With shining sails that soared from land to land. 
 A universal language of the world 
 Made nations kin, and poverty was known 
 But as a word marked "obsolete," like war. 
 The arts were kindled with celestial fire ; 
 New poets sang so Homer's fame grew dim ; 
 And brush and chisel gave the wondering race 
 Sublimer treasures than old Greece displayed. 
 Men differed still ; fierce argument arose, 
 For men are human in this human sphere ; 
 But unarmed Arbitration stood between 
 And Reason settled in a hundred hours 
 What War disputed for a hundred years. 
 
 Oh, that a Voice, of one God-authorized 
 Might cry to all mankind, Disarm ! Disarm ! 
 
GOD'S ANSWER 65 
 
 GOD'S ANSWER 
 
 Once in a time of trouble and of care 
 
 I dreamed I talked with God about my pain ; 
 
 With sleepland courage, daring to complain 
 Of what I deemed ungracious and unfair. 
 4 'Lord, I have groveled on my knees in prayer 
 
 Hour after hour," I cried ; "yet all in vain ; 
 
 No hand leads up to heights I would attain, 
 No path is shown me out of my despair." 
 
 Then answered God: "Three things I gave to thee — 
 Clear brain, brave will, and strength of mind and 
 heart, 
 All implements divine, to shape the way. 
 Why shift the burden of thy toil on Me? 
 Till to the utmost he has done his part 
 
 With all his might, let no man dare to pray." 
 
66 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 THE EDICT OF THE SEX 
 
 Two thousand years had passed since Christ was born, 
 
 When suddenly there rose a mighty host 
 
 Of women, sweeping to a central goal 
 
 As many rivers sweep on to the sea. 
 
 They came from mountains, valleys, and from coasts, 
 
 And from all lands, all nations, and all ranks, 
 
 Speaking all languages, but thinking one. 
 
 And that one language — Peace. 
 
 "Listen," they said, 
 And straightway was there silence on the earth, 
 For men were dumb with wonder and surprise. 
 "Listen, O mighty masters of the world, 
 And hear the edict of all womankind : 
 Since Christ his new commandment gave to men, 
 Love one another, full two thousand years 
 Have passed away, yet earth is red with blood. 
 The strong male rulers of the world proclaim 
 Their weakness, when we ask that war shall cease. 
 Now will the poor weak women of the world 
 Proclaim their strength, and say that war shall end. 
 Hear, then, our edict : Never from this day 
 Will any woman on the crust of earth 
 Mother a warrior. We- have sworn the oath 
 And will go barren to the waiting tomb 
 Rather than breed strong sons at war's behest, 
 Or bring fair daughters into life, to bear 
 The pains of travail, for no end but war. 
 
THE EDICT OF THE SEX 67 
 
 Aye ! let the race die out for lack of babes : 
 Better a dying race than endless wars ! 
 Better a silent world than noise of guns 
 And clash of armies. 
 
 "Long we asked for peace, 
 And oft you promised — but to fight again. 
 At last you told us, war must ever be 
 While men existed, laughing at our plea 
 For the disarmament of all mankind. 
 Then in our hearts flamed such a mad desire 
 For peace on earth, as lights the world at times 
 With some great conflagration ; and it spread 
 From distant land to land, from sea to sea, 
 Until all women thought as with one mind 
 And spoke as with one voice ; and now behold ! 
 The great Crusading Syndicate of Peace, 
 Filling all space with one supreme resolve. 
 Give us, O men, your word that war shall end : 
 Disarm the world, and we will give you sons — 
 Sons to construct, and daughters to adorn 
 A beautiful new earth, where there shall be 
 Fewer and finer people, opulence 
 And opportunity and peace for all. 
 Until you promise peace no shrill birth-cry 
 Shall sound again upon the aeing earth. 
 We wait your answer." 
 
 And the world was still 
 While men considered. 
 
68 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 THE WORLD-CHILD 
 
 At times I am the mother of the world ; 
 
 And mine seem all its sorrows, and its fears. 
 That rose, which in each mother-heart is curled, 
 
 The rose of pity, opens with my tears, 
 And, waking in the night, I lie and hark 
 
 To the lone sobbing, and the wild alarms, 
 Of my World-child, a wailing in the dark : 
 
 The child I fain would shelter in my arms. 
 I call to it (as from another room 
 
 A mother calls, what time she cannot go) : 
 ''Sleep well, dear world ; Love hides behind this gloom. 
 
 There is no need for wakefulness or woe, 
 The long, long night is almost past and gone, 
 The day is near." And yet the world weeps on. 
 
 Again I follow it, throughout the day. 
 
 With anxious eyes I see it trip and fall, 
 And hurt itself in many a foolish way: 
 
 Childlike, unheeding warning word or call. 
 I see it grasp, and grasping, break the toys 
 
 It cried to own, then toss them on the floor 
 And, breathless, hurry after fancied joys 
 
 That cease to please, when added to its store. 
 I see the lacerations on its hands, 
 
 Made by forbidden tools ; but when it weeps, 
 I also weep, as one who understands ; 
 
 And having been a child, the memory keeps. 
 Ah, my poor world, however wrong thy part, 
 Still is there pity in my mother-heart. 
 
THE GOAL 69 
 
 THE GOAL 
 
 All roads that lead to God are good ; 
 
 What matters it, your faith, or mine; 
 
 Both center at the goal divine 
 Of love's eternal Brotherhood. 
 
 The kindly life in house or street ; 
 
 The life of prayer, and mystic rite; 
 
 The student's search for truth and light ; 
 These paths at one great junction meet. 
 
 Before the oldest book was writ, 
 Full many a prehistoric soul 
 Arrived at this unchanging goal, 
 
 Through changeless love, that led to it. 
 
 What matters that one found his Christ 
 
 In rising sun, or burning fire ; 
 
 If faith within him did not tire, 
 His longing for the truth sufficed. 
 
 Before our "Christian" hell was brought 
 To edify a modern world, 
 Full many a hate-filled soul was hurled 
 In lakes of fire by its own thought. 
 
 A thousand creeds have come and gone ; 
 
 But what is that to you or me? 
 
 Creeds are but branches of a tree, 
 The root of love lives on and on. 
 
70 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 Though branch by branch proves withered wood, 
 The root is warm with precious wine ; 
 Then keep your faith, and leave me mine ; 
 
 All roads that lead to God are good. 
 
 ON SEEING "THE HOUSE OF JULIA" 
 AT HERCULANEUM 
 
 Not great Vesuvius, in all his ire, 
 
 Nor all the centuries, could hide your shame. 
 
 There is the little window where you came, 
 With eyes that woke the demon of desire, 
 And lips like rose leaves, fashioned out of fire ; 
 
 And from the lava leaps the molten flame 
 
 Of your old sins. The walls cry out your name — 
 Your face seems rising from the funeral pyre. 
 
 There must have dwelt, within your fated town, 
 Full many a virtuous dame, and noble wife 
 Who made your beauty seem as star to sun ; 
 How strange the centuries have handed down 
 Your name, fair Julia, of immoral life, 
 And left the others to oblivion. 
 
A PRAYER 71 
 
 A PRAYER 
 
 Master of sweet and loving lore, 
 
 Give us the open mind 
 To know religion means no more, 
 
 No less, than being kind. 
 
 Give us the comprehensive sight 
 That sees another's need; 
 
 And let our aim to set things right 
 Prove God inspired our creed. 
 
 Give us the soul to know our kin 
 That dwell in flock and herd, 
 
 The voice to fight man's shameful sin 
 Against the beast and bird. 
 
 Give us a heart with love so fraught 
 
 For all created things, 
 That even our unspoken thought 
 
 Bears healing on its wings. 
 
 Give us religion that will cope 
 
 With life's colossal woes, 
 And turn a radiant face of hope 
 
 On troops of pigmy foes. 
 
 Give us the mastery of our fate 
 In thoughts so warm and white, 
 
 They stamp upon the brows of hate 
 Love's glorious seal of light. 
 
72 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 Give us the strong, courageous faith 
 That makes of pain a friend, 
 
 And calls the secret word of death 
 "Beginning," and not "end." 
 
 WHAT IS RIGHT LIVING? 
 
 What is right living? Just to do your best 
 When worst seems easier. To bear the ills 
 Of daily life with patient cheerfulness 
 Nor waste dear time recounting them. 
 
 To talk 
 Of hopeful things when doubt is in the air. 
 To count your blessings often, giving thanks, 
 And to accept your sorrows silently, 
 Nor question why you suffer. To accept 
 The whole of life as one perfected plan, 
 And welcome each event as part of it. 
 To work, and love your work ; to trust, to pray 
 For larger usefulness and clearer sight. 
 This is right living, pleasing in God's eyes, 
 Though you be heathen, heretic or Jew. 
 
JUSTICE 73 
 
 JUSTICE 
 
 However inexplicable may seem 
 
 Event and circumstance upon this earth, 
 Though favors fall on those whom none esteem, 
 
 And insult and indifference greet worth ; 
 Though poverty repays the life of toil, 
 
 And riches spring where idle feet have trod, 
 And storms lay waste the patiently tilled soil — 
 
 Yet Justice sways the universe of God. 
 
 As undisturbed the stately stars remain 
 Beyond the glare of day's obscuring light, 
 
 So Justice dwells, though mortal eyes in vain 
 Seek it persistently by reason's sight. 
 
 But when, once freed, the illumined soul looks out. 
 
 Its cry will be, "O God, how could I doubt!" 
 
74 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 TIME'S GAZE 
 
 Time looked me in the eyes while passing by 
 The milestone of the year. That piercing gaze 
 Was both an accusation and reproach. 
 No speech was needed. In a sorrowing look 
 More meaning lies than in complaining words, 
 And silence hurts as keenly as reproof. 
 
 Oh, opulent, kind giver of rich hours, 
 
 How have I used thy benefits ! As babes 
 
 Unstring a necklace, laughing at the sound 
 
 Of priceless jewels dropping one by one, 
 
 So have I laughed while precious moments rolled 
 
 Into the hidden corners of the past. 
 
 And I have let large opportunities 
 
 For high endeavor move unheeded by, 
 
 While little joys and cares absorbed my strength. 
 
 And yet, dear Time, set to my credit this : 
 
 Not one white hour have I made black with hate, 
 
 Nor wished one living creature aught but good. 
 
 Be patient with me. Though the sun slants west, 
 The day has not yet finished, and I feel 
 Necessity for action and resolve 
 Bear in upon my consciousness. I know 
 The earth's eternal need of earnest souls, 
 And the great hunger of the world for Love. 
 I know the goal to high achievement lies 
 Through the dull pathway of self-conquest first; 
 
THE TWO AGES 75 
 
 And on the stairs of little duties done 
 We climb to joys that stand thy test. O Time, 
 Be patient with me, and another day, 
 Perchance, in passing by, thine eyes may smile. 
 
 THE TWO AGES 
 
 On great cathedral windows I have seen 
 A summer sunset swoon and sink away, 
 Lost in the splendors of immortal art. 
 Angels and saints and all the heavenly hosts, 
 With smiles undimmed by half a thousand years, 
 From wall and niche have met my lifted gaze. 
 Sculpture and carving and illumined page, 
 And the fair, lofty dreams of architects, 
 That speak of beauty to the centuries — 
 All these have fed me with divine repasts. 
 Yet in my mouth is left a bitter taste, 
 The taste of blood that stained that age of art. 
 
 Those glorious windows shine upon the black 
 
 And hideous structure of the guillotine : 
 
 Beside the haloed countenance of saints 
 
 There hangs the multiple and knotted lash. 
 
 The Christ of love, benign and beautiful, 
 
 Looks at the torture-rack, by hate conceived 
 
 And bigotry sustained. The prison cell, 
 
 With blood-stained walls, where starving men went 
 
 mad, 
 Lies under turrets matchless in their grace. 
 
76 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 God, what an age ! How was it that You let 
 
 Colossal genius and colossal crime 
 
 Walk for a hundred years across the earth, 
 
 Like giant twins ? How was it that the minds, 
 
 Conceiving such vast beauty for the world, 
 
 And such large hopes of heaven, could entertain 
 
 Such hellish projects for humanity? 
 
 How could the hand that with consummate skill 
 
 And loving patience limned the luminous page, 
 
 Drop pen and brush, and seize the branding-rod, 
 
 To scourge a brother for his differing faith? 
 
 Not great this age, in beauty or in art. 
 
 Little is wrought to-day that shall endure, 
 
 For earth's adornment, through long centuries. 
 
 Not ours the fervid worship of a God 
 
 That wastes its splendid opulence on glass, 
 
 Leaving but hate, to give its mortal kin. 
 
 Yet great this age : its mighty work is man 
 
 Knowing himself, the universal life. 
 
 And great our faith, which shows itself in works 
 
 For human freedom and for racial good. 
 
 The true religion lies in being kind. 
 
 No age is greater than its faith is broad. 
 
 Through liberty and love men climb to God. 
 
LOVE, TIME AND WILL 77 
 
 LOVE, TIME, AND WILL 
 
 A soul immortal, Time, God everywhere, 
 
 Without, within — how can a heart despair, 
 
 Or talk of failure, obstacles, and doubt ? 
 
 (What proofs of God? The little seeds that sprout, 
 
 Life, and the solar system, and their laws. 
 
 Nature? Ah, yes ; but what was Nature's cause ?) 
 
 All mighty words are short. God, life, and death, 
 War, peace, and truth, are uttered in a breath. 
 And briefly said are love, and will, and time ; 
 Yet in them lies a majesty sublime. 
 
 Love is the vast constructive power of space ; 
 Time is the hour which calls it into place ; 
 Will is the means of using time and love, 
 And bringing forth the heart's desires thereof. 
 
 The way is love, the time is now, and will 
 The patient method. Let this knowledge fill 
 Thy consciousness, and fate and circumstance. 
 Environment, and all the ills of chance 
 Must yield before the concentrated might 
 Of those three words, as shadows yield to light. 
 
 Go charge thyself with love; be infinite 
 And opulent with thy large use of it : 
 'Tis from free sowing that full harvest springs ; 
 Love God, and life and all created things. 
 
78 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 Learn time's great value; to this mandate bow, 
 The hour of opportunity is Now. 
 And from thy will, as from a well-strung bow, 
 Let the swift arrows of thy wishes go. 
 Though sent into the distance and the dark, 
 The dawn shall prove thy arrows hit the mark. 
 
 THE WORKER AND THE WORK 
 
 In what I do I note the marring flaw, 
 The imperfections of the work I see ; 
 Nor am I one who rather do than be, 
 
 Since its reversal is Creation's law. 
 
 Nay, since there lies a better and a worse, 
 A lesser and a larger, in men's view, 
 I would be better than the thing I do, 
 
 As God is greater than his universe. 
 
 He shaped himself before he shaped one world 
 A million eons, toiling day and night, 
 He built himself to majesty and might, 
 
 Before the planets into space were hurled. 
 
 And when Creation's early work was done, 
 What crude beginnings out of chaos came — 
 A formless nebula, a wavering flame, 
 
 An errant comet, a voracious sun. 
 
THE WORKER AND THE WORK 79 
 
 And, still unable to perfect his plan, 
 
 What awful creatures at his touch found birth — 
 Those protoplasmic monsters of the earth, 
 
 That owned the world before He fashioned Man. 
 
 And now, behold the poor unfinished state 
 Of this, his latest masterpiece ! Then why, 
 Seeing the flaws in my own work, should I 
 
 Be troubled that no voice proclaims it great ? 
 
 Before me lie the cycling rounds of years ; 
 With this small earth will die the thing I do : 
 The thing I am, goes journeying onward through 
 
 A million lives, upon a million spheres. 
 
 My work I build, as best I can and may, 
 Knowing all mortal effort ends in dust. 
 I build myself, not as I may, but must, 
 
 Knowing, or good, or ill, that self must stay. 
 
 Along the ages, out, and on, afar, 
 
 Its journey leads, and must perforce be made. 
 
 Likewise its choice, with things of shame and shade, 
 Or up the path of light, from star to star. 
 
 When all these solar systems shall disperse, 
 Perchance this labor, and this self-control, 
 May find reward ; and my completed soul 
 
 Will fling in space, a little universe. 
 
80 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 ART THOU ALIVE? 
 
 Art thou alive ? Nay, not too soon reply, 
 Tho' hand, and foot, and lip, and ear, and eye, 
 Respond, and do thy bidding ; yet may be 
 Grim death has done his direst work with thee. 
 Life, as God gives it, is a thing apart 
 From active body and from beating heart. 
 It is the vital spark, the unseen fire, 
 That moves the mind to reason and aspire ; 
 It is the force that bids emotion roll, 
 In mighty billows from the surging soul. 
 
 It is the light that grows from hour to hour, 
 And floods the brain with consciousness of power ; 
 It is the spirit dominating all, 
 And reaching God with its imperious call, 
 Until the shining glory of His face 
 Illuminates each sorrowful, dark place ; 
 It is the truth that sets the bondsman free, 
 Knowing he will be what he wills to be. 
 With its unburied dead the earth is sad. 
 Art thou alive? Proclaim it and be glad. 
 Perchance the dead may hear thee and arise, 
 Knowing they live, and here is Paradise. 
 
TO-DAY 81 
 
 TO-DAY 
 
 I love this age of energy and force, 
 
 Expectantly I greet each pregnant hour ; 
 Emerging from the all-creative source, 
 
 Supreme with promise, imminent with power. 
 The strident whistle and the clanging bell, 
 
 The noise of gongs, the rush of motored things 
 Are but the prophet voices which foretell 
 
 A time when thought may use unfettered wings. 
 
 Too long the drudgery of earth has been 
 
 A barrier 'twixt man and his own mind. 
 Remove the stone, and lo ! the Christ within ; 
 
 For He is there, and who so seeks shall find. 
 The Great Inventor is the Modern Priest. 
 
 He paves the pathway to a higher goal. 
 Once from the grind of endless toil released 
 
 Man will explore the kingdom of his soul. 
 
 And all this restless rush, this strain and strife, 
 This noise and glare is but the fanfarade 
 
 That ushers in the more majestic life 
 
 Where faith shall walk with science, unafraid. 
 
 I feel the strong vibrations of the earth, 
 I sense the coming of an hour sublime, 
 
 And bless the star that watched above my birth 
 
 l And let me live in this important time. 
 
82 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 THE LADDER 
 
 Unto each mortal who comes to earth 
 
 A ladder is given by God, at birth, 
 
 And up this ladder the soul must go, 
 
 Step by step, from the valley below ; 
 
 Step by step, to the center of space, 
 
 On this ladder of lives, to the Starting Place. 
 
 In time departed (which yet endures) 
 
 I shaped my ladder, and you shaped yours. 
 
 Whatever they are — they are what we made : 
 
 A ladder of light, or a ladder of shade, 
 
 A ladder of love, or a hateful thing, 
 
 A ladder of strength, or a wavering string. 
 
 A ladder of gold, or a ladder of straw, 
 
 Each is the ladder of righteous law. 
 
 We flung them away at the call of death, 
 We took them again with the next life breath. 
 For a keeper stands by the great birth gates; 
 As each soul passes, its ladder waits. 
 
 Though mine be narrow, and yours be broad, 
 On my ladder alone can I climb to God. 
 On your ladder alone can your feet ascend, 
 For none may borrow, and none may lend. 
 
 If toil and trouble and pain are found, 
 Twisted and corded, to form each round, 
 
WHO IS A CHRISTIAN? 83 
 
 If rusted iron or mouldering wood 
 Is the fragile frame, you must make it good. 
 You must build it over and fashion it strong, 
 Though the task be hard as your life is long ; 
 For up this ladder the pathway leads 
 To earthly pleasures and spirit needs ; 
 And all that may come in another way 
 Shall be but illusion, and will not stay. 
 
 In useless effort, then, waste no time ; 
 Rebuild your ladder, and climb and climb. 
 
 WHO IS A CHRISTIAN? 
 
 Who is a Christian in this Christian land 
 Of many churches and of lofty spires? 
 Not he who sits in soft upholstered pews 
 Bought by the profits of unholy greed, 
 And looks devotion, while he thinks of gain. 
 Not he who sends petitions from the lips 
 That lie to-morrow in the street and mart. 
 Not he who fattens on another's toil, 
 And flings his unearned riches to the poor, 
 Or aids the heathen with a lessened wage, 
 And builds cathedrals with an increased rent. 
 
 Christ, with Thy great, sweet, simple creed of love, 
 How must Thou weary of Earth's "Christian" clans, 
 Who preach salvation through Thy saving blood 
 While planning slaughter of their fellow men. 
 
84 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 Who is a Christian ? It is one whose life 
 Is built on love, on kindness and on faith ; 
 Who holds his brother as his other self ; 
 Who toils for justice, equity and PEACE, 
 And hides no aim or purpose in his heart 
 That will not chord with universal good. 
 
 Though he be pagan, heretic or Jew, 
 
 That man is Christian and beloved of Christ. 
 
 THE GOAL 
 
 All your wonderful inventions, 
 All your houses vast and tall, 
 
 All your great gun-fronted vessels, 
 Every fort and every wall, 
 
 With the passing of the ages, 
 
 They shall pass and they shall fall. 
 
 As you sit among the idols 
 That your avarice gave birth, 
 
 As you count the hoarded treasures 
 That you think of priceless worth, 
 
 Time is digging tombs to hide them 
 In the bosom of the earth. 
 
 There shall come a great convulsion 
 
 Or a rushing tidal wave, 
 Or a sound of mighty thunders 
 
 From a subterranean cave, 
 And a boasting world's possessions 
 
 Shall be buried in one grave. 
 
THE GOAL 85 
 
 From the Centuries of Silence 
 
 We are bringing back again 
 Buried vase and bust and column 
 
 And the gods they worshiped then, 
 In the strange unmentioned cities 
 
 Built by prehistoric men. 
 
 Did they steal, and lie, and slaughter ? 
 
 Did they steep their souls in shame ? 
 Did they sell eternal virtues 
 
 Just to win a passing fame? 
 Did they give the gold of honor 
 
 For the tinsel of a name? 
 
 We are hurrying all together 
 
 Toward the silence and the night ; 
 
 There is nothing worth the seeking 
 But the sun-kissed moral height — 
 
 There is nothing worth the doing 
 But the doing of the right. 
 
86 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 THE SPUR 
 
 I asked the rock beside the road what joy existence lent. 
 It answered, "For a million years my heart has been 
 content." 
 
 I asked the truffle-seeking swine, as rooting by he went, 
 "What is the keynote of your life?" He grunted out, 
 "Content." 
 
 I asked a slave, who toiled and sang, just what his sing- 
 ing meant. 
 
 He plodded on his changeless way, and said, "I am 
 content." 
 
 I asked a plutocrat of greed, on what his thoughts 
 
 were bent. 
 He chinked the silver in his purse, and said, "I am con- 
 
 I asked the mighty forest tree from whence its force 
 
 was sent. 
 Its thousand branches spoke as one, and said, "From 
 discontent." 
 
 I asked the message speeding on, by what great law 
 
 was rent 
 God's secret from the waves of space. It said, "From 
 
 discontent." 
 
AWAKENED 87 
 
 I asked the marble, where the works of God and man 
 
 were blent, 
 What brought the statue from the block. It answered 
 
 "Discontent." 
 
 I asked an Angel, looking down on earth with gaze 
 
 intent, 
 How man should rise to larger growth. Quoth he, 
 
 "Through discontent." 
 
 AWAKENED! 
 
 Slowly the People waken ; they have been, 
 
 Like weary soldiers, sleeping in their tents, 
 
 While traitors tiptoed through the silent camp 
 
 Intent on plunder. Suddenly a sound — 
 
 A careless movement of too bold a thief — 
 
 Starts one dull sleeper ; then another stirs, 
 
 A third cries out a warning, and at last 
 
 The people are awake! Oh, when as one 
 
 The many rise, united and alert, 
 
 With Justice for their motto, they reflect 
 
 The mighty force of God's Omnipotence. 
 
 And nothing stands before them. Lusty Greed, 
 
 Tyrannical Corruption long in power, 
 
 And smirking Cant (whose right hand robs and slays 
 
 So that the left may dower Church and School), 
 
 Monopoly, whose mandate took from Toil 
 
 The Mother Earth, that Idleness might loll 
 
 And breed the Monster of Colossal Wealth — 
 
 All these must fall before the gathering Force 
 
88 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 Of public indignation. That old strife 
 Which marks the progress of each century, 
 The war of Right with Might, is on once more, 
 And shame to him who does not take his stand. 
 
 This is the weightiest moment of all time, 
 And on the issues of the present hour 
 A nation's honor and a country's peace, 
 A People's future, aye, a World's, depends. 
 
 Until the vital questions of the day 
 
 Are solved and settled, and the spendthrift thieves 
 
 Who rob the coffers of the saving poor 
 
 Are led from fashion's feasts to prison fare, 
 
 And taught the saving grace of honest work — 
 
 Till Labor claims the privilege of toil 
 
 And toil the proceeds of its labor shares — 
 
 Let no man sleep, let no man dare to sleep ! 
 
SHADOWS 89 
 
 SHADOWS 
 
 I am sorry in the gladness 
 
 Of the joys that crown my days, 
 For the souls that sit in sadness 
 
 Or walk uninviting ways. 
 
 On the radiance of my labor 
 That a loving fate bestowed, 
 
 Falls the shadow of my neighbor, 
 Crushed beneath a thankless load. 
 
 As the canticle of pleasure 
 From my lovelit altar rolls, 
 
 There is one discordant measure, 
 As I think of homeless souls. 
 
 And I know that grim old story, 
 Preached from pulpits, is not so, 
 
 For no God could sit in glory 
 And see sinners writhe below. 
 
 In that great eternal Center 
 Where all human life has birth, 
 
 Boundless love and pity enter 
 And flow downward to the earth. 
 
 And all souls in sin or sorrow 
 Are but passing through the night, 
 
 And I know on some to-morrow 
 God will love them into light. 
 
90 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 THE NEW COMMANDMENT 
 
 "Let Go the Cross" — Gertrude Runshon 
 
 I heard a strange voice in the distance calling 
 As from a star an echo might be falling. 
 
 It spoke four syllables, concise and brief, 
 Charged with a God-sent message of relief : 
 
 Let go the cross! Oh, you who cling to sorrow, 
 Hark to the new command and comfort borrow. 
 
 Even as the Master left His cross below 
 And rose to Paradise, let go, let go. 
 
 Forget your wrongs, your troubles and your losses, 
 For with the tools of thought we build our crosses. 
 
 Forget your griefs, all grudges and all fear 
 And enter Paradise — its gates are near. 
 
 Heaven is a realm by loving souls created, 
 And hell was fashioned by the hearts that hated. 
 
 Love, hope and trust; believe all joys are yours, 
 Life pays the soul whose confidence endures, 
 
 The blows of adverse fate, by larger pleasures, 
 As after storms the soil yields fuller measures. 
 
 Let go the cross; roll self — the stone — away 
 And dwell with Love in Paradise to-day. 
 
SUMMER DREAMS 91 
 
 SUMMER DREAMS 
 
 When the Summer sun is shining, 
 
 And the green things push and grow, 
 Oft my heart runs over measure, 
 With its flowing fount of pleasure, 
 As I feel the sea winds blow ; 
 Ah, then life is good, I know. 
 
 And I think of sweet birds building, 
 
 And of children fair and free; 
 And of glowing sun-kissed meadows, 
 And of tender twilight shadows, 
 And of boats upon the sea. 
 Oh, then life seems good to me! 
 
 Then unbidden and unwanted, 
 
 Come the darker, sadder sights ; 
 City shop and stifling alley, 
 Where misfortune's children rally; 
 And the hot crime-breeding nights, 
 And the dearth of God's delights. 
 
 And I think of narrow prisons 
 Where unhappy songbirds dwell, 
 
 And of cruel pens and cages 
 
 Where some captured wild thing rages 
 Like a madman in his cell, 
 In the Zoo, the wild beasts' hell. 
 
 And I long to lift the burden 
 Of man's selfishness and sin ; 
 
92 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 And to open wide earth's treasures 
 Of God's storehouse, full of pleasures, 
 For my dumb and human kin, 
 And to ask the whole world in. 
 
 THE BREAKING OE CHAINS 
 
 Between the ringing of bells and the musical clang of 
 chimes 
 
 I hear a sound like the breaking of chains, all through 
 these Christmas times. 
 
 For the thought of the world is waking out of a slum- 
 ber deep and long, 
 
 And the race is beginning to understand how Right can 
 master Wrong. 
 
 And the eyes of the world are opening wide, and great 
 
 are the truths they see ; 
 And the heart of the world is singing a song, and its 
 
 burden is "Be free!" 
 Now the thought of the world and the wish of the 
 
 world and the song of the world will make 
 A force so strong that the fetters forged for a million 
 
 years must break. 
 
 Fetters of superstitious fear have bound the race to 
 
 creeds 
 That hindered the upward march of man to the larger 
 
 faith he needs. 
 Fetters of greed and pride have made the race bow 
 
 down to kings ; 
 But the pompous creed and the costly throne must yield 
 
 to simpler things. 
 
THE BREAKING OF THE CHAINS 93 
 
 The thought of the world has climbed above old paths 
 
 for centuries trod ; 
 And cloth and crown no longer mean the "vested power 
 
 of God." 
 The race no longer bends beneath the weight of Adam's 
 
 sin, 
 But stands erect and knows itself the Maker's first of 
 
 kin. 
 
 And the need of the world and the wish of the world 
 
 and the song of the world I hear, 
 All through the clanging and clashing of bells, this 
 
 Christmas time o' the year ; 
 And I hear a sound like the breaking of chains, and it 
 
 seems to say to me, 
 In the voice of One who spoke of old, "The Truth shall 
 
 make men free." 
 
94 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 DECEMBER 
 
 Upon December's windy portico 
 
 The Old Year stood, and looked out where the sun 
 
 Went wading down the West, through drifting clouds. 
 
 "I, too, shall sink full soon to rest," he sighed, 
 
 "And follow where my children's feet have trod ; 
 
 Brave January, beauteous May and June, 
 
 My lovely daughters, and my valiant sons, 
 
 All, all save one, have left me for that bourne 
 
 Men call the Past. It seems but yesterday 
 
 I saw fair August, laughing with the Sea, 
 
 Snaring the Earth with her seductive wiles, 
 
 And making conquest, even of the San. 
 
 Yet has she gone, and left me here to mourn." 
 
 Then spake December, from an open door : 
 
 "Father, the night grows cold ; come in and rest. 
 
 Sit with me here beside this glowing grate ; 
 
 I have not left thee ; thou art not alone ; 
 
 My house is thine ; all warm with love and light, 
 
 And bright with holly and with cedar sweet. 
 
 My stalwart arm is thine to lean upon ; 
 
 The feast is spread, I only wait for thee ; 
 
 God smiles upon thy dead, smile thou on me." 
 
 Then through the open door the Old Year passed 
 
 And darkness settled on the outer world. 
 
THE WAY" 95 
 
 "THE WAY" 
 
 However certain of the way thou art, 
 Take not the self-appointed leader's part. 
 Follow no man, and by no man be led, 
 And no man lead. Awake, and go ahead. 
 Thy path, though leading straight unto the goal 
 Might prove confusing to another soul. 
 The goal is central ; but from east, and west, 
 And north, and south, we set out on the quest ; 
 From lofty mountains, and from valleys low : — 
 How could all find one common way to go? 
 
 Lord Buddha to the wilderness was brought. 
 Lord Jesus to the Cross. And yet, think not 
 By solitude, or cross, thou canst achieve, 
 Lest in thine own true Self thou dost believe. 
 Know thou art One, with life's Almighty Source, 
 Then are thy feet set on the certain Course. 
 
 Nor does it matter if thou feast, or fast, 
 
 Or what thy creed — or where thy lot is cast ; 
 
 In halls of pleasure or in crowded mart, 
 
 In city streets, or from all men apart — 
 
 Thy path leads to the Light ; and peace and power 
 
 Shall be thy portion, growing hour by hour. 
 
 Follow no man, and by no man be led. 
 
 And no man lead. But know and go ahead. 
 
96 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 THE LEADER TO BE 
 
 What shall the leader be in that great day 
 
 When we who sleep and dream that we are slaves 
 
 Shall wake and know that Liberty is ours ? 
 
 Mark well that word — not yours, not mine, but ours. 
 
 For through the mingling of the separate streams 
 
 Of individual protest and desire, 
 
 In one united sea of purpose, lies 
 
 The course to Freedom. 
 
 When Progression takes 
 Her undisputed right of way, and sinks 
 The old traditions and conventions where 
 They may not rise, what shall the leader be ? 
 
 No mighty warrior skilled in crafts of war, 
 Sowing earth's fertile furrows with dead men 
 And staining crimson God's cerulean sea, 
 To prove his prowess to a shuddering world. 
 
 Nor yet a monarch with a silly crown 
 Perched on an empty head, an in-bred heir 
 To senseless titles and anemic blood. 
 
 No ruler, purchased by the perjured votes 
 
 Of striving demagogues whose god is gold. 
 
 Not one of these shall lead to Liberty. 
 
 The weakness of the world cries out for strength. 
 
 The sorrow of the world cries out for hope. 
 
 Its suffering cries for kindness. 
 
THE LEADER TO BE 97 
 
 He who leads 
 Must then be strong and hopeful as the dawn 
 That rises unafraid and full of joy 
 Above the blackness of the darkest night. 
 He must be kind to every living thing ; 
 Kind as the Krishna, Buddha and the Christ, 
 And full of love for all created life. 
 Oh, not in war shall his great prowess lie, 
 Nor shall he find his pleasure in the chase. 
 Too great for slaughter, friend of man and beast, 
 Touching the borders of the Unseen Realms 
 And bringing down to earth their mystic fires 
 To light our troubled pathways, wise and kind 
 And human to the core, so shall he be, 
 The coming leader of the coming time. 
 
POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 THE GREATER LOVE 
 
 Hear thou my prayer, great God of opulence ; 
 
 Give me no blessings, save as recompense 
 
 For blessings which I lovingly bestow 
 
 On needy stranger or on suffering foe. 
 
 If Wealth, by chance, should on my path appear, 
 
 Let Wisdom and Benevolence stand near, 
 
 And Charity within my portal wait, 
 
 To guard me from acquaintance intimate. 
 
 Yet in this intricate great art of living 
 Guide me away from misdirected giving, 
 And show me how to spur the laggard soul 
 To strive alone once more to gain the goal. 
 
 Repay my worldly efforts to attain 
 
 Only as I develop heart and brain ; 
 
 Nor brand me with the "Dollar Sign" above 
 
 A bosom void of sympathy and love. 
 
 If on the carrying winds my name be blown 
 To any land or time beyond my own, 
 Let it not be as one who gained the day 
 By crowding others from the chosen way ; 
 Rather as one who missed the highest place 
 Pausing to cheer spent runners in the race. 
 To do — to have — is lesser than to BE : 
 The greater boon I ask, dear God, from Thee. 
 
THANK GOD FOR LIFE 99 
 
 THANK GOD FOR LIFE 
 
 Thank God for life, in such an age as this, 
 Rich with the promises of better things. 
 
 Thank God for being part of this great nation's heart, 
 Whose strong pulsations are not ruled by kings. 
 
 Our thanks for fearless and protesting speech 
 
 When cloven hoofs show 'neath the robes of state. 
 
 For us no servile song of "Kings can do no wrong." 
 Not royal birth, but worth, makes rulers great. 
 
 Thank God for peace within our border lands, 
 And for the love of peace within each soul. 
 
 Who thinks on peace has wrought, mosaic-squares of 
 thought 
 In the foundation of our future goal. 
 
 Our thanks for love, and knowledge of love's laws. 
 Love is a greater power than vested might. 
 
 Love is the central source of all enduring force. 
 Love is the law that sets the whole world right. 
 
 Our thanks for that increasing torch of light 
 The tireless hand of science holds abroad. 
 
 And may its growing blaze shine on all hidden ways 
 Till man beholds the silhouette of God. 
 
100 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 THE LAW 
 
 The sun may be clouded, yet ever the sun 
 Will sweep on its course till the cycle is run. 
 And when into chaos the systems are hurled, 
 Again shall the Builder reshape a new world. 
 
 Your path may be clouded, uncertain your goal ; 
 Move on, for the orbit is fixed for your soul. 
 And though it may lead into darkness of night, 
 The torch of the Builder shall give it new light. 
 
 You were, and you will be ; know this while you are : 
 Your spirit has traveled both long and afar. 
 It came from the Source, to the Source it returns ; 
 The spark that was lighted eternally burns. 
 
 It slept in the jewel, it leaped in the wave; 
 It roamed in the forest, it rose from the grave ; 
 It took on strange garbs for *ong eons of years, 
 And now in the soul of yourself it appears. 
 
 From body to body your spirit speeds on ; 
 
 It seeks a new form, when the old one is gone ; 
 
 And the form that it finds, is the fabric you wrought 
 
 On the loom of the mind, with the fibre of thought. 
 
 As dew is drawn upward, in rain to descend, 
 Your thoughts drift away and in destiny blend. ' 
 You cannot escape them ; or petty, or great, 
 Or evil, or noble, they fashion your fate. 
 
THE LAW 101 
 
 Somewhere on some planet, sometime and somehow, 
 Your life will reflect all the thoughts of your now. 
 The law is unerring ; no blood can atone ; 
 The structure you rear you must live in alone. 
 
 From cycle to cycle, through time and through space, 
 Your lives with your longings will ever keep pace. 
 And all that you ask for, and all you desire, 
 Must come at your bidding, as flames out of fire. 
 
 You are your own devil, you are your own God. 
 You fashioned the paths that your footsteps have trod. 
 And no one can save you from error or sin 
 Until you shall hark to the spirit within. 
 
 Once list to that voice and all tumult is done, 
 Your life is the life of the Infinite One ; 
 In the hurrying race you are conscious of pause, 
 With love for the purpose and love for the cause. 
 
102 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 TIME ENOUGH 
 
 I know it is early morning, 
 
 And hope is calling aloud, 
 And your heart is afire with Youth's desire 
 
 To hurry along with the crowd. 
 But linger a bit by the roadside, 
 
 And lend a hand by the way, 
 'Tis a curious fact that a generous act 
 
 Brings leisure and luck to a day. 
 
 I know it is only the noontime — 
 
 There is chance enough to be kind ; 
 But the hours run fast when noon has passed, 
 
 And the shadows are close behind. 
 So think while the light is shining, 
 
 And act ere the set of the sun, 
 For the sorriest woe that a soul can know 
 
 Is to think what it might have done. 
 
 I know it is almost evening, 
 
 But the twilight hour is long. 
 If you listen and heed each cry of need 
 
 You can right full many a wrong. 
 For when we have finished the journey 
 
 We will all look back and say : 
 "On life's long mile there was nothing worth while 
 
 But the good we did by the way." 
 
NEW YEAR'S DAY 103 
 
 NEW YEAR'S DAY 
 
 When with clanging and with ringing 
 
 Comes the year's initial day, 
 I can feel the rhythmic swinging 
 
 Of the world upon its way ; 
 And though Right still wears a fetter, 
 
 And though Justice still is blind, 
 Time's beyond is always better 
 
 Than the paths he leaves behind. 
 
 In our eons of existence, 
 
 As we circle through the night, 
 We annihilate the distance 
 
 'Twixt the darkness and the light. 
 From beginnings crude and lowly, 
 
 Round and round our souls have trod 
 Through the circles, winding slowly 
 
 Up to knowledge and to God. 
 
 With each century departed 
 
 Some old evil found a tomb, 
 Some old truth was newly started 
 
 In propitious soil to bloom. 
 With each epoch some condition 
 
 That has handicapped the race 
 (Worn-out creed or superstition) 
 
 Unto knowledge yields its place. 
 
 Though in folly and in blindness 
 And in sorrow still we grope, 
 
104 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 Yet in man's increasing kindness 
 Lies the world's stupendous hope; 
 
 For our darkest hour of errors 
 Is as radiant as the dawn, 
 
 Set beside the awful terrors 
 Of the ages that have gone. 
 
 And above the sad world's sobbing, 
 
 And the strife of clan with clan, 
 I can hear the mighty throbbing 
 
 Of the heart of God in man ; 
 And a voice chants through the chiming 
 
 Of the bells, and seems to say, 
 We are climbing, we are climbing, 
 
 As we circle on our way. 
 
 LIFE IS A PRIVILEGE 
 
 Life is a privilege. Its youthful days 
 Shine with the radiance of continuous Mays. 
 To live, to breathe, to wonder and desire, 
 To feed with dreams the heart's perpetual fire ; 
 To thrill with virtuous passions and to glow 
 With great ambitions — in one hour to know 
 The depths and heights of feeling — God ! in truth 
 How beautiful, how beautiful is youth ! 
 
 Life is a privilege. Like some rare rose 
 The mysteries of the human mind unclose. 
 What marvels lie in earth and air and sea, 
 What stores of knowledge wait our opening key, 
 
LIFE'S A PRIVILEGE 105 
 
 What sunny roads of happiness lead out 
 Beyond the realms of indolence and doubt, 
 And what large pleasures smile upon and bless 
 The busy avenues of usefulness. 
 
 Life is a privilege. Though noontide fades 
 And shadows fall along the winding glades; 
 Though joy-blooms wither in the autumn air, 
 Yet the sweet scent of sympathy is there. 
 Pale sorrow leads us closer to our kind, 
 And in the serious hours of life we find 
 Depths in the soul of men which lend new worth 
 And majesty to this brief span of earth. 
 
 Life is a privilege. If some sad fate 
 Sends us alone to seek the exit gate ; 
 If men forsake us as the shadows fall, 
 Still does the supreme privilege of all 
 Come in that reaching upward of the soul 
 To find the welcoming presence at the goal, 
 And in the knowledge that our feet have trod 
 Paths that lead from and must lead back to God. 
 
106 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 IN AN OLD ART GALLERY 
 
 Before the statue of a giant Hun, 
 
 There stood a dwarf, misshapen and uncouth. 
 
 His lifted eyes seemed asking: "Why, in sooth, 
 Was I not fashioned like this mighty one? 
 Would God show favor to an older son 
 
 Like earthly kings, and beggar without ruth 
 
 Another, who sinned only by his youth? 
 Why should two lives in such divergence run?" 
 
 Strange, as he gazed, that from a vanished past 
 No memories revived of war and strife, 
 Of misused prowess, and of broken law. 
 That old Hun's spirit, in the dwarf recast, 
 Lived out the sequence of an earthly life. 
 It was the statue of himself he saw! 
 
 TRUE BROTHERHOOD 
 
 God, what a world, if men in street and mart 
 Felt that same kinship of the human heart 
 Which makes them, in the face of flame and flood, 
 Rise to the meaning of true Brotherhood ! 
 
THE DECADENT 107 
 
 THE DECADENT 
 
 Among the virile hosts he passed along, 
 Conspicuous for an undetermined grace 
 Of sexless beauty. In his form and face 
 
 God's mighty purpose somehow had gone wrong. 
 
 Then on his loom, he wove a careful song, 
 Of sensuous threads ; a wordy web of lace 
 Wherein the primal passions of the race 
 
 And his own sins made wonder for the throng. 
 
 A little pen prick opened up a vein, 
 
 And gave the finished mesh a crimson blot — 
 The last consummate touch of studied art. 
 But those who knew strong passion and keen pain, ' 
 Looked through and through the pattern and found 
 not 
 One single great emotion of the heart. 
 
108 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 LORD, SPEAK AGAIN 
 
 When God had formed the Universe, He thought 
 
 Of all the marvels therein to be wrought 
 
 And to his aid then Motherhood was brought. 
 
 "My lesser self, the feminine of Me, 
 
 She will go forth throughout all time/' quoth He, 
 
 "And make my world what I would have it be. 
 
 "For I am weary, having labored so, 
 
 And for a cycle of repose would go 
 
 Into that silence which but God may know. 
 
 "Therefore I leave the rounding of my plan 
 To Motherhood ; and that which I began 
 Let woman finish in perfecting man. 
 
 "She is the soil : the human Mother Earth : 
 She is the sun, that calls the seed to earth. 
 She is the gardener, who knows its worth. 
 
 "From Me, all seed, of any kind must spring. 
 Divine the growth such seed and soil will bring. 
 For all is Me, and I am everything." 
 
 Thus having spoken to himself aloud, 
 
 His glorious face upon His breast He bowed, 
 
 And sought repose behind a wall of cloud. 
 
LORD, SPEAK AGAIN 109 
 
 Come forth, O God! though great thy thought and 
 
 good, 
 In shaping woman for true Motherhood, 
 Lord, speak again ; she has not understood. 
 
 The centuries pass : the cycles roll along — 
 The earth is peopled with a mighty throng, 
 Yet men are fighting and the world goes wrong. 
 
 Lord, speak again, ere yet it be too late, 
 
 Unloved, unwanted souls come through earth's gate : 
 
 The unborn child is given a dower of hate. 
 
 Thy world progresses in all ways save one. 
 In Motherhood, for which it was begun, 
 Lord, Lord, behold how little has been done ! 
 
 Children are spawned like fishes in the sand. 
 With ignorance and crime they fill the land. 
 Lord, speak again, till mothers understand. 
 
 It is not all of Motherhood to know 
 
 Conception pleasure or deliverance woe. 
 
 Who plants the seed should help the shoot to grow. 
 
 Better a barren soil than weed and tare, 
 Or sickly plants that die for want of care 
 In poisonous jungles, void of sun and air. 
 
 True Motherhood is not alone to breed 
 The human race ; it is to know and heed 
 Its holiest purpose and its highest need. 
 
 Lord, speak again, so woman shall be stirred 
 With the full meaning of that mighty word 
 True Motherhood. She has not rightly heard. 
 
110 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 MY HEAVEN. 
 
 Unhoused in deserts of accepted thought, 
 And lost in jungles of confusing creeds, 
 My soul strayed, homeless, finding its own needs 
 
 Unsatisfied with what tradition taught. 
 
 The pros and cons, the little ifs and ands, 
 The but and maybe, and the this and that, 
 On which the churches thicken and grow fat, 
 
 I found but structures built on shifting sands. 
 
 And all their heavens were strange and far away, 
 And all their hells were made of human hate; 
 And since for death I did not care to wait, 
 
 A heaven I fashioned for myself one day. 
 
 Of happy thoughts I built it stone by stone, 
 With joy of life I draped each spacious room, 
 With love's great light I drove away all gloom, 
 
 And in the center I made God a throne. 
 
 And this dear heaven I set within my heart, 
 And carried it about with me alway, 
 And then the changing dogmas of the day 
 
 Seemed alien to my thoughts and held no part. 
 
 Now as I take my heaven from place to place 
 I find new rooms by love's revealing light, 
 And death will give me but a larger sight 
 
 To see my palace spreading into space. 
 
LIFE 111 
 
 LIFE 
 
 On a bleak, bald hill with a dull world under, 
 
 The dreary world of the Commonplace, 
 I have stood when the whole world seemed a blunder 
 
 Of dotard Time, in an aimless race. 
 With worry about me and want before me — 
 
 Yet deep in my soul was a rapture spring 
 That made me cry to the gray sky o'er me : 
 
 "Oh, I know this life is a goodly thing!" 
 
 I have given sweet years to a thankless duty 
 
 While cold and starving, though clothed and fed, 
 For a young heart's hunger for joy and beauty 
 
 Is harder to bear than the need of bread. 
 I have watched the wane of a sodden season, 
 
 Which let hope wither, and made care thrive, 
 And through it all, without earthly reason, 
 
 I have thrilled with the glory of being alive. 
 
 And now I stand by the great sea's splendor, 
 
 Where love and beauty feed heart and eye. 
 The brilliant light of the sun grows tender 
 
 As it slants to the shore of the by and by. 
 I prize each hour as a golden treasure — 
 
 A pearl Time drops from a broken string : 
 And all my ways are the ways of pleasure, 
 
 And I know this life is a goodly thing. 
 
 And I know, too, that not in the seeing, 
 Or having, or doing the things we would, 
 
112 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 Lies that deep rapture that comes from being 
 At one with the Purpose which made all good. 
 
 And not from Pleasure the heart may borrow 
 That rare contentment for which we strive, 
 
 Unless through trouble, and want, and sorrow 
 It has thrilled with the glory of being alive. 
 
 GOD'S KIN 
 
 There is no summit you may not attain, 
 
 No purpose which you may not yet achieve, 
 If you will wait serenely and believe 
 
 Each seeming loss is but a step toward gain. 
 
 Between the mountain-tops lie vale and plain ; 
 
 Let nothing make you question, doubt or grieve ; 
 
 Give only good, and good alone receive ; 
 And as you welcome joy, so welcome pain. 
 
 That which you most desire awaits your word ; 
 
 Throw wide the door and bid it enter in. 
 Speak, and the strong vibrations shall be stirred ; 
 
 Speak, and above earth's loud, unmeaning din 
 Your silent declarations shall be heard. 
 
 All things are possible to God's own kin. 
 
CONQUEST 113 
 
 CONQUEST 
 
 Talk not of strength, until your heart has known 
 And fought with weakness through long hours alone. 
 
 Talk not of virtue, till your conquering soul 
 Has met temptation and gained full control. 
 
 Boast not of garments, all unscorched by sin, 
 
 Till you have passed, unscathed, through fires within. 
 
 Oh, poor that pride the unscarred soldier shows, 
 Who safe in camp, has never faced his foes. 
 
114 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 THE STATUE 
 
 A granite rock in the mountain side 
 Gazed on the world and was satisfied. 
 It watched the centuries come and go. 
 It welcomed the sunlight, yet loved the snow. 
 It grieved when the forest was forced to fall, 
 Yet joyed when steeples rose, white and tall, 
 In the valley below it, and thrilled to hear 
 The voice of the great town roaring near. 
 
 When the mountain stream from its idle play 
 Was caught by the mill wheel and borne away 
 And trained to labor, the gray rock mused 
 "Trees and verdure and stream are used 
 By Man the Master; but I remain 
 Friend of the mountain, and star, and plain, 
 Unchanged forever by God's decree, 
 While passing centuries bow to me." 
 
 Then all unwarned, with a mighty shock 
 Out of the mountain was wrenched the rock. 
 Bruised and battered and broken in heart, 
 It was carried away to the common mart, 
 Wrecked and ruined in piece and pride. 
 "Oh, God is cruel," the granite cried, 
 "Comrade of mountains, of stars the friend, 
 By all deserted, how sad my end." 
 
 A dreaming sculptor in passing by 
 Gazed at the granite with thoughtful eye. 
 
SIRIUS 115 
 
 Then stirred with a purpose supremely grand 
 He bade his dream in the rock expand. 
 And lo ! from the broken and shapeless mass 
 That grieved and doubted, it came to pass 
 That a glorious statue of priceless worth 
 And infinite beauty, adorned the earth. 
 
 SIRIUS 
 
 "Since Sirius crossed the Milky Way, sixty thousand 
 years have gone." — Garrett P. Serviss. 
 
 Since Sirius crossed the Milky Way 
 Full sixty thousand years have gone, 
 
 Yet hour by hour, and day by day, 
 This tireless star speeds on and on. 
 
 Methinks he must be moved to mirth 
 
 By that droll tale of Genesis, 
 Which says creation had its birth 
 
 For such a puny world as this. 
 
 To hear how One who fashioned all 
 Those Solar Systems, tier on tiers, 
 
 Expressed in little Adam's fall 
 The purpose of a million spheres. 
 
 And, witness of the endless plan, 
 
 To splendid wrath he must be wrought 
 
 By pigmy creeds presumptuous man 
 Sends forth as God's primeval thought. 
 
116 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 Perchance from half a hundred stars 
 He hears as many curious things; 
 
 From Venus, Jupiter and Mars, 
 
 And Saturn with the beauteous rings, 
 
 There may be students of the Cause 
 Who send their revelations out, 
 
 And formulate their codes of laws, 
 
 With heavens for faith and hells for doubt. 
 
 On planets old ere form or place 
 
 Was lent to earth, may dwell — who knows — 
 A God-like and perfected race 
 
 That hails great Sirius as he goes. 
 
 In zones that circle moon and sun, 
 
 Twixt world and world, he may see souls 
 
 Whose span of earthly life is done, 
 Still journeying up to higher goals. 
 
 And on dead planets gray and cold 
 Grim spectral souls, that harbored hate 
 
 Life after life, he may behold 
 Descending to a darker fate. 
 
 And on his grand majestic course 
 
 He may have caught one glorious sight 
 
 Of that vast shining central Source 
 
 From which proceeds all Life, all Light. 
 
 Since Sirius crossed the Milky Way 
 Full sixty thousand years have gone, 
 
 No mortal man may bid him stay, 
 No mortal man may speed him on. 
 
AT FONTAINEBLEAU 117 
 
 No mortal mind may comprehend 
 What is beyond, what was before ; 
 
 To God be glory without end, 
 Let man be humble and adore. 
 
 AT FONTAINEBLEAU 
 
 At Fontainebleau, I saw a little bed 
 
 Fashioned of polished wood, with gold ornate, 
 Ambition, hope, and sorrow, aye, and hate 
 
 Once battled there, above a childish head, 
 
 And there in vain, grief wept, and memory plead 
 It was so small ! but Ah, dear God, how great 
 The part it played in one sad woman's fate. 
 
 How wide the gloom, that narrow object shed. 
 
 The symbol of an over-reaching aim, 
 The emblem of a devastated joy, 
 
 It spoke of glory, and a blasted home: 
 Of fleeting honors, and disordered fame, 
 And the lone passing of a fragile boy. 
 * * ^ * * * % 
 
 It was the cradle of the King of Rome. 
 
118 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 THE MASQUERADE 
 
 Look in the eyes of trouble with a smile, 
 Extend your hand and do not be afraid. 
 "Fis but a friend who comes to masquerade. 
 
 And test your faith and courage for awhile. 
 
 Fly, and he follows fast with threat and jeer. 
 Shrink, and he deals hard blow on stinging blow, 
 But bid him welcome as a friend, and lo ! 
 
 The jest is off — the masque will disappear. 
 
SYMPATHY 119 
 
 SYMPATHY 
 
 Is the way hard and thorny, oh, my brother ? 
 
 Do tempests beat, and adverse wild winds blow? 
 And are you spent, and broken, at each nightfall, 
 
 Yet with each morn you rise and onward go ? 
 Brother, I know, I know ! 
 I, too, have journeyed so. 
 
 Is your heart mad with longing, oh, my sister? 
 
 Are all great passions in your breast aglow ? 
 Does the white wonder of your own soul blind you, 
 
 And are you torn with rapture and with woe ? 
 Sister, I know, I know ! 
 I, too, have suffered so. 
 
 Is the road filled with snare and quicksand, pilgrim ? 
 
 Do pitfalls lie where roses seem to grow ? 
 And have you sometimes stumbled in the darkness, 
 
 And are you bruised and scarred by many a blow? 
 Pilgrim, I know, I know ! 
 I, too, have stumbled so. 
 
 Do you send out rebellious cry and question, 
 As mocking hours pass silently and slow, 
 
 Does your insistent "wherefore" bring no answer, 
 While stars wax pale with watching, and droop low? 
 
 I, too, have questioned so, 
 
 But now / know, I know! 
 
 To toil, to strive, to err, to cry, to grow, 
 
 To love through all — this is the way to know. 
 
120 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 INTERMEDIARY 
 
 When from the prison of its body free, 
 
 My soul shall soar, before it goes to Thee, 
 
 Thou great Creator, give it power to know 
 
 The language of all sad, dumb things below. 
 
 And let me dwell a season still on earth 
 
 Before I rise to some diviner birth : 
 
 Invisible to men, yet seen and heard, 
 
 And understood by sorrowing beast and bird — 
 
 Invisible to men, yet always near, 
 
 To whisper counsel in the human ear : 
 
 And with a spell to stay the hunter's hand 
 
 And stir his heart to know and understand ; 
 
 To plant within the dull or thoughtless mind 
 
 The great religious impulse to be kind. 
 
 Before I prune my spirit wings and rise 
 To seek my loved ones in their paradise, 
 Yea ! even before I hasten on to see 
 That lost child's face, so like a dream to me, 
 I would be given this intermediate role, 
 And carry comfort to each poor, dumb soul : 
 And bridge man's gulf of cruelty and sin 
 By understanding of his lower kin. 
 'Twixt weary driver and the straining steed 
 On wings of mercy would my spirit speed. 
 And each should know, before his journey's end, 
 That in the other dwelt a loving friend. 
 
LIFE'S CAR 121 
 
 Prom zoo and jungle, and from cage and stall, 
 
 I would translate each inarticulate call, 
 
 Each pleading look, each frenzied act and cry, 
 
 And tell the story to each passer-by ; 
 
 And of a spirit's privilege possessed, 
 
 Pursue indifference to its couch of rest, 
 
 And whisper in its ear until in awe 
 
 It woke and knew God's all-embracing law 
 
 Of Universal Life — the One in All. 
 
 Lord, let this mission to my lot befall. 
 
 LIFE'S CAR 
 
 "Hurry up!" 
 No lingering by old doors of doubt — 
 
 No loitering by the way, 
 No waiting a To-morrow car, 
 
 When you can board Today. 
 Success is somewhere down the track ; 
 
 Before the chance is gone 
 Accelerate your laggard pace, 
 
 Swing on, I say, swing on — 
 Hurry up ! 
 
 "Step lively!" 
 Belated souls are following fast, 
 
 They shout and signal, "Wait." 
 Conductor Time brooks no delay, 
 
 He rings the bell of Fate. 
 But you can give the man behind, 
 
 With one hand on the bar, 
 
122 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 A final chance to brook defeat, 
 And board the moving car. 
 Step lively! 
 
 "Move up!" 
 Make way for others as you sit 
 
 Or stand. This crowded earth 
 Has room for every journeying soul 
 
 En route to higher birth. 
 Aye, room and comfort, if no one 
 
 Took double share or space, 
 Nor let his greed and selfishness 
 
 Absorb another's place. 
 Move up ! 
 
 "Holdfast!" 
 
 The jolting switch of obstacles 
 
 With jarring rails is near. 
 Stand firm of foot, be strong of grip, 
 
 Brace well and have no fear. 
 The Maker of the Car of Life 
 
 Foresaw that curve — Despair, 
 And hung the straps of faith, and hope 
 
 So you might grasp them there. 
 Holdfast! 
 
 OPPORTUNITY 
 
 Send forth your heart's desire, and work and wait; 
 
 The opportunities of life are brought 
 To our own doors, not by capricious fate, 
 
 But by the strong compelling force of thought. 
 
THE AGE OF MOTORED THINGS 123 
 
 THE AGE OF MOTORED THINGS 
 
 The wonderful age of the world I sing — 
 
 The age of battery, coil and spring, 
 
 Of steam, and storage, and motored thing. 
 
 Though faith may slumber and art seem dead, 
 And all that is spoken has once been said, 
 And all that is written were best unread ; 
 
 Though hearts are iron and thoughts are steel, 
 And all that has value is mercantile, 
 Yet marvelous truths shall the age reveal. 
 
 Aye, greater the marvels this age shall find 
 
 Than all the centuries left behind, 
 
 When faith was a bigot and art was blind. 
 
 Oh, sorry the search of the world for gods, 
 Through faith that slaughters and art that lauds, 
 While reason sits on its throne and nods. 
 
 But out of the leisure that men will know, 
 When the cruel things of the sad earth go, 
 A Faith that is Knowledge shall rise and grow. 
 
 In the throb and whir of each new machine 
 Thinner is growing the veil between 
 The visible earth and the world's unseen. 
 
 The True Religion shall leisure bring; 
 And Art shall awaken and Love shall sing : 
 Oh, ho ! for the age of the motored thing ! 
 
124 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 NEW YEAR 
 Mortal: 
 
 "The night is cold, the hour is late, the world is 
 
 bleak and drear ; 
 "Who is it knocking at my door ?" 
 
 The New Year: 
 
 "I am Good Cheer." 
 
 Mortal: 
 
 "Your voice is strange ; I know you not ; in shad- 
 ows dark I grope. 
 "What seek you here?" 
 
 The New Year: 
 
 "Friend, let me in ; my name is Hope." 
 
 Mortal: 
 
 "And mine is Failure; you but mock the life you 
 
 seek to bless. 
 "Pass on." 
 
 The Nezv Year: 
 
 "Nay, open wide the door; I am Success." 
 
 Mortal: 
 
 "But I am ill and spent with pain; too late has 
 
 come your wealth. 
 "I cannot use it." 
 
 The New Year: 
 
 "Listen, friend ; I am Good Health." 
 
DISARMAMENT 125 
 
 Mortal: 
 
 "Now, wide I fling my door. Come in, and your 
 fair statements prove." 
 
 The New Year: 
 
 "But you must open, too, your heart, for I am 
 Love." 
 
 DISARMAMENT 
 
 We have outgrown the helmet and cuirass, 
 The spear, the arrow, and the javelin. 
 These crude inventions of a cruder age, 
 When men killed men to show their love of God, 
 And he who slaughtered most was greatest king. 
 We have outgrown the need of war ! 
 
 Should men 
 Unite in this one thought, all war would end. 
 
 Disarm the world ; and let all Nations meet 
 Like Men, not monsters, when disputes arise. 
 When crossed opinions tangle into snarls, 
 Let Courts untie them, and not armies cut. 
 When State discussions breed dissentions, let 
 Union and Arbitration supersede 
 The hell-created implements of War. 
 Disarm the world ! and bid destructive thought 
 Slip like a serpent from the mortal mind 
 Down through the marshes of oblivion. Soon 
 A race of gods shall rise ! Disarm ! Disarm ! 
 
126 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 EXISTENCE 
 
 You are here, and you are wanted, 
 Though a waif upon life's stair; 
 Though the sunlit hours are haunted 
 With the shadowy shapes of care. 
 Still the Great One, the All-Seeing, 
 Called your spirit into being — 
 Gave you strength for any fate. 
 Since your life by Him was needed, 
 All your ways by Him are heeded — 
 You can trust and you can wait. 
 
 You can wait to know the meaning 
 
 Of the troubles sent your soul ; 
 Of the chasms intervening 
 
 'Twixt your purpose and your goal ; 
 Of the sorrows and the trials, 
 Of the silence and denials, 
 
 Ofttimes answering to your pleas; 
 Of the stinted sweets of pleasure, 
 And of pain's too generous measure — 
 
 You can wait the why of these. 
 
 Forth from planet unto planet, 
 You have gone, and you will go. 
 
 Space is vast, but we must span it ; 
 For life's purpose is to know. 
 
 Earth retains you but a minute, 
 
 Make the best of what lies in it ; 
 
THE HEIGHTS 127 
 
 Light the pathway where you are. 
 There is nothing worth the doing 
 That will leave regret or rueing, 
 
 As you speed from star to star. 
 
 You are part of the Beginning, 
 
 You are parcel of To-day. 
 When He set His world to spinning 
 
 You were flung upon your way. 
 When the system falls to pieces, 
 When this pulsing epoch ceases, 
 
 When the is becomes the was, 
 You will live, for you will enter 
 In the great Creative Center, 
 
 In the All-Enduring Cause. 
 
 THE HEIGHTS 
 
 I cried, "Dear Angel, lead me to the heights, 
 
 And spur me to the top." 
 
 The Angel answered, "Stop 
 And set thy house in order ; make it fair 
 For absent ones who may be speeding there. 
 
 Then will we talk of heights." 
 
 I put my house in order. "Now lead on !" 
 
 The Angel said, "Not yet; 
 
 Thy garden is beset 
 By thorns and tares ; go weed it, so all those 
 Who come to gaze may find the unvexed rose : 
 
 Then will we journey on." 
 
128 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 I weeded well my garden. "All is done." 
 
 The Angel shook his head. 
 
 "A beggar stands," he said, 
 "Outside thy gates ; till thou hast given heed 
 And soothed his sorrow, and supplied his need, 
 
 Say not that all is done." 
 
 The beggar left me singing. "Now at last — 
 
 At last the path is clear." 
 
 "Nay, there is one draws near 
 Who seeks, like thee, the difficult highway. 
 He lacks thy courage; cheer him through the day. 
 
 Then will we cry, 'At last!' " 
 
 I helped my weaker brother. "Now the heights; 
 
 Oh, Guide me, Angel, guide!" 
 
 The Presence at my side, 
 With radiant face, said, "Look, where are we now?" 
 And lo! we stood upon the mountain's brow— 
 
 The heights, the shining heights ! 
 
THE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC 129 
 
 THE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 I have listened to the sighing of the burdened and the 
 
 bound, 
 I have heard it change to crying, with a menace in the 
 
 sound ; 
 I have seen the money getters pass unheeding on the 
 
 way, 
 As they went to forge new fetters for the people day 
 
 by day. 
 
 Then the voice of Labor thundered forth its purpose 
 
 and its need, 
 And I marveled, and I wondered, at the cold dull ear of 
 
 greed; 
 For as chimes, in some great steeple, tell the passing of 
 
 the hour, 
 So the voices of the people tell the death of purchased 
 
 power. 
 
 All the gathered dust of ages, God is brushing from His 
 
 book; 
 He is opening up its pages, and He bids His children 
 
 look; 
 And in shock and conflagration, and in pestilence and 
 
 strife, 
 He is speaking to the nations, of the brevity of life. 
 
 Mother Earth herself is shaken by our sorrows and 
 
 our crimes; 
 And she bids her sons awaken to the portent of the 
 
 times ; 
 
130 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 With her travail pains upon her, she is hurling from 
 
 their place 
 All the minions of dishonor, to admit the Coming Race. 
 
 By the voice of Justice bidden, she has torn the mask 
 
 from might. 
 All the shameful secrets hidden, she is dragging into 
 
 light; 
 And whoever wrongs his neighbor must be brought to 
 
 judgment now, 
 Though he wear the badge of Labor, or a crown upon 
 
 his brow. 
 
 There is growth in Revolution, if the word is under- 
 stood ; 
 
 It is one with Evolution, up from self, to brotherhood ; 
 
 He who utters it unheeding, bent on self, or selfish gain, 
 
 His own day of doom is speeding, though he toil, or 
 though he reign. 
 
 God is calling to the masses, to the peasant, and the 
 
 peer; 
 He is calling to all classes, that the crucial hour is near ; 
 For each rotting throne must tremble, and fall broken 
 
 in the dust, 
 With the leaders who dissemble, and betray a people's 
 
 trust. 
 
 Still the voice of God is calling ; and above the wreck I 
 
 see, 
 And beyond the gloom appalling, the great Govern- 
 
 ment-to-Be. 
 
THE RADIANT CHRIST 131 
 
 From the ruins it has risen, and my soul is overjoyed, 
 For the School supplants the prison, and there are no 
 "unemployed.'' 
 
 And there are no children's faces at the spindle or the 
 
 loom; 
 They are out in sunny places, where the other sweet 
 
 things bloom ; 
 God has purified the alleys, He has set the white slaves 
 
 free, 
 And they own the hills and valleys in this Government- 
 
 to-Be. 
 
 THE RADIANT CHRIST 
 
 Arise, oh master artist of the age, 
 
 And paint the picture which at once shall be 
 
 Immortal art and bless'd prophecy. 
 
 The bruis'd vision of the world assuage ; 
 
 To earth's dark book add one illumined page, 
 
 So scintillant with truth, that all who see 
 
 Shall break from superstition and stand free. 
 
 Now let this wondrous work thy hand engage. 
 
 The mortal sorrow of the Nazarene, 
 
 Too long has been faith's symbol and its sign ; 
 
 Too long a dying Saviour has sufficed. 
 
 Give us the glowing emblem which shall mean, 
 
 Mankind awakened to the Self Divine; 
 
 The living emblem of the Radiant Christ. 
 
132 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 II 
 
 Too long the crucifix on Calvary's height 
 Has cast its shadow on the human heart. 
 Let now Religion's great co-worker Art, 
 Limn on the background of departing night, 
 The shining Face all palpitant with light, 
 And God's true message to the world impart. 
 Go tell each toiler in the home and mart, 
 "Lo, Christ is with ye, if ye seek aright." 
 The world forgets the vital word Christ taught; 
 The only word the world has need to know ; 
 The answer to creation's problem — Love. 
 The world remembers what the Christ forgot; 
 His cross of anguish and his death of woe; 
 Release the martyr, and the cross remove ! 
 
 Ill 
 
 For now "the former things have passed away," 
 
 And man, forgetting that which lies behind, 
 
 And ever pressing forward, seeks to find 
 
 The prize of his high calling. Send a ray 
 
 From art's bright sun, to fortify the day, 
 
 And blaze the trail to every mortal mind. 
 
 The new religion lies in being kind ; 
 
 Faith stands and works, where once it knelt to pray 
 
 Faith counts its gain, where once it reckoned loss; 
 
 Ascending paths, its patient feet have trod; 
 
 Man looks within, and finds salvation there. 
 
 Release the suffering Saviour from the Cross, 
 
 And give the waiting world its Radiant God. 
 
THE CALL 133 
 
 THE CALL 
 
 All wantonly in hours of joy, 
 
 I made a song of pain. 
 
 Soon Grief drew near, and paused to hear, 
 
 And sang the sad refrain, 
 
 Again and yet again. 
 
 Then recklessly in my despair, 
 
 I sang of hope one day. 
 
 And Joy turned back upon life's track, 
 
 And smiled, and came my way, 
 
 And sat her down to stay. 
 
134 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 A LITTLE SONG 
 
 Oh, a great world, a fair world, a true world I find it ; 
 
 A sun that never forgets to rise, 
 
 On the darkest night, a star in the skies, 
 
 And a God of love behind it. 
 
 Oh, a good life, a sweet life, a large life I take it, 
 Is what He offers to you, and me ; 
 A chance to do, and a chance to be, 
 Whatever we choose to make it. 
 
 Oh, a far way, a high way, a sure way He leads us ; 
 And if the journey at times seems long, 
 We must trudge ahead, with a trustful song, 
 And know at the end He needs us. 
 
THE BIRTH OF JEALOUSY 135 
 
 THE BIRTH OF JEALOUSY 
 
 With brooding mein and sultry eyes, 
 Outside the gates of Paraclise, 
 Eve sat, and fed the faggot flame, 
 That lit the path whence Adam came. 
 (Strange are the workings of a woman's mind.) 
 
 His giant shade preceded him, 
 
 Along the pathway green, and dim ; 
 
 She heard his swift approaching tread, 
 
 But still she sat with drooping head. 
 
 (Dark are the jungles of unhappy thought.) 
 
 He kissed her mouth, and gazed within 
 Her troubled eyes ; for since their sin, 
 His love had grown a thousand fold. 
 But Eve drew back; her face was cold. 
 (Oh, who can read the cipher of a soul.) 
 
 "Now art thou mourning still, sweet wife?" 
 
 Spake Adam tenderly, "the life 
 
 Of our lost Eden ? Why, in thee 
 
 All Paradise remains for me." 
 
 (Deep, deep the currents in a strong man's heart.) 
 
 Thus Eve: "Nay not lost Eden's bliss 
 
 I mourn; for heavier woe than this 
 
 Wears on me with one thought accursed. 
 
 In Adam's life I am not first. 
 
 (Oh woman's mind, what hells are fashioned there.) 
 
136 POEMS OF PROGRESS 
 
 "The serpent whispered Lilith's name: 
 
 ('Twas thus he drove me to my shame) 
 
 Pluck yonder fruit, he said, and know, 
 
 How Adam loved her, long ago. 
 
 (Fools, Fools, who wander searching after pain.) 
 
 "I ate ; and like an ancient scroll, 
 
 I saw that other life unroll; 
 
 I saw thee, Adam, far from here 
 
 With Lilith on a wondrous sphere. 
 
 (Bold, bold, the daring of a jealous heart.) 
 
 "Nay, tell me not I dreamed it all; 
 
 Last night in sleep thou didst let fall 
 
 Her name in tenderness; I bowed 
 
 My stricken head, and cried aloud. 
 
 (Vast, vast the torment of a self-made woe.) 
 
 "And it was then, and not before, 
 That Eden shut, and barred its door. 
 Alone in God's great world I seemed, 
 Whilst thou of thy lost Lilith dreamed. 
 (Oh, who can measure such wide loneliness.) 
 
 "Now every little breeze that sings, 
 
 Sighs Lilith, like thy whisperings. 
 
 Oh, where can sorrow hide its face, 
 
 When Lilith, Lilith, fills all space?" 
 
 (And Adam in the darkness spake no word.) 
 
SUMMER'S FAREWELL 137 
 
 SUMMER'S FAREWELL 
 
 All in the time when Earth did most deplore 
 The cold, ungracious aspect of young May, 
 Sweet Summer came, and bade him smile once more ; 
 She wove bright garlands, and in winsome play, 
 She bound him willing captive. Day by day 
 She found new wiles wherewith his heart to please; 
 Or bright the sun, or if the skies were gray, 
 They laughed together, under spreading trees, 
 By running brooks, or on the sandy shores of seas. 
 
 They were but comrades. To that radiant maid, 
 
 No serious word he spake ; no lovers' plea. 
 
 Like careless children, glad and unafraid, 
 
 They sported in their opulence of glee. 
 
 Her shining tresses floated wild, and free ; 
 
 In simple lines, her emerald garments hung; 
 
 She was both good to hear, and fair to see; 
 
 And when she laughed, then Earth laughed too, and 
 
 flung 
 His cares behind him, and grew radiant and young. 
 
 One golden day, as he reclined beneath 
 
 The arching azure of enchanting skies, 
 
 Fair Summer came, engirdled with a wreath 
 
 Of gorgeous leaves all scintillant with dyes. 
 
 Effulgent was she ; yet within her eyes, 
 
 There hung a quivering mist of tears unshed. 
 
 Her crimson mantled bosom shook with sighs ; 
 
 Above him bent the glory of her head ; 
 
 And on his mouth she pressed a splendid kiss, and fled. 
 
New Thought Pastels 
 
Copyright, 1906, 
 
 BY 
 
 Eua Wheeler Wii,cox 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 NEW THOUGHT PASTELS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A Dialogue 141 
 
 The Weed 143 
 
 Strength 144 
 
 Affirm 145 
 
 The Chosen 146 
 
 The Nameless 148 
 
 The Word 149 
 
 Assistance 151 
 
 Credulity 152 
 
 Consciousness 153 
 
 The Structure 154 
 
 Our Souls 155 
 
 The Law 156 
 
 Knowledge 157 
 
 Give 159 
 
 Perfection 161 
 
 Fear 162 
 
 The Way 163 
 
 Understood 164 
 
 His Mansion 165 
 
 Effect 166 
 
 Three Things 167 
 
 Obstacles 168 
 
 Prayer 169 
 
 Climbing 170 
 
 "There Is No Death, There Are No Dead" 171 
 
 Realization 173 
 
A Dialogue. 
 
 Mortal 
 HE world is full of selfishness and 
 greed. 
 Lord, I would lave its sin. 
 
 Spirit. 
 Yea, mortal, earth of thy good 
 help has need. 
 Go cleanse thyself within. 
 
 Mortal. 
 Mine ear is hurt by harsh and evil speech. 
 I would reform men's ways. 
 Spirit. 
 There is hut one convincing way to teach. 
 Speak thou hut words of praise. 
 
 Mortal. 
 On every hand is wretchedness and grief, 
 Despondency and fear. 
 Lord, I would give my fellow men relief. . 
 
 10 
 
 141 
 
142 NEW THOUGHT PASTELS 
 
 Spirit. 
 Be, then, all hope, all cheer. 
 
 Mortal. 
 Lord, I look outward and grow sick at heart, 
 Such need of change I see. 
 
 Spirit. 
 Mortal, look in. Do thy allotted part, 
 And leave the rest to ME. 
 
THE WEED 143 
 
 The Weed. 
 
 WEED is but an unloved flower! 
 Go dig, and prune, and guide, 
 
 and wait, 
 Until it learns its high estate, 
 And glorifies some bower. 
 A weed is but an unloved flower ! 
 
 All sin is virtue unevolved, 
 
 Eelease the angel from the clod- 
 Go love thy brother up to God. 
 
 Behold each problem solved. 
 All sin is virtue unevolved. 
 
144 
 
 NEW THOUGHT PASTELS 
 
 Strength, 
 
 HO is the strong? Not he who puts 
 to test 
 His sinews with the strong and 
 
 proves the best ; 
 But he who dwells where weak- 
 lings congregate, 
 And never lets his splendid strength abate. 
 
 Who is the good ! Not he who walks each day 
 With moral men along the high, clean way ; 
 But he who jostles gilded sin and shame, 
 Yet will not sell his honor or his name. 
 
 Who is the wise ? Not he who from the start 
 With Wisdom's followers has taken part; 
 But he who looks in Folly's tempting eyes, 
 And turns away, perceiving her disguise. 
 
 Who is serene f Not he who flees his kind, 
 Some mountain fastness, or some cave to find ; 
 But he who in the city's noisiest scene, 
 Keeps calm within— he only is serene. 
 
AFFIRM 
 
 145 
 
 Affi 
 
 rm. 
 
 ODY and mind, and spirit, all 
 combine 
 To make the Creature, human and 
 divine. 
 
 Of this great trinity no part deny. 
 Affirm, affirm, the Great Eternal I. 
 
 Affirm the body, beautiful and whole, 
 The earth-expression of immortal soul. 
 
 Affirm the mind, the messenger of the hour, 
 To speed between thee and the source of 
 power. 
 
 Affirm the spirit, the Eternal I— 
 Of this great trinity no part deny. 
 
146 
 
 NEW THOUGHT PASTELS 
 
 The Chosen. 
 
 HEY stood before the Angel at the 
 gate; 
 The Angel asked : ' ' Why should 
 you enter in?" 
 One said: "On earth my place 
 was high and great;" 
 And one: "I warned my fellow-men from 
 sin ; ' ' 
 Another : "I was teacher of the faith ; 
 I scorned my life and lived in love with death. ' ' 
 
 And one stood silent. ' l Speak ! ' ' the Angel said ; 
 
 1 1 What earthly deed has sent you here today ! ' ' 
 "Alas ! I did but follow where they led," 
 
 He answered sadly: "I had lost my way— 
 So new the country, and so strange my flight; 
 I only sought for guidance and for light.' ' 
 
THE CHOSEN 147 
 
 ' ' You have no passport V 9 " None, ' 9 the answer 
 came. 
 
 "I loved the earth, tho' lowly was my lot. 
 I strove to keep my record free from blame, 
 
 And make a heaven about my humble spot. 
 A narrow life ; I see it now, too late ; 
 So, Angel, drive me from the heavenly gate." 
 
 The Angel swung the portal wide and free, 
 And took the sorrowing stranger by the hand. 
 
 1 ' Nay, you alone, ' ' he said, ' l shall come with me, 
 Of all this waiting and insistent band. 
 
 Of what God gave, you built your paradise; 
 
 Behold your mansion waiting in the skies." 
 
148 NEW THOUGHT PASTELS 
 
 The Nameless. 
 
 NNUMBERED gods may unre- 
 
 membered die; 
 A thousand creeds may perish 
 
 and pass by; 
 'Yet do I lift mine eyes to ONE 
 
 on high. 
 
 Unnamed be HE from whom creation came; 
 There is no word whereby to speak His name 
 But petty men have mouthed it into shame. 
 
 I lift mine eyes, and with a river 's force 
 
 My love's full tide goes sweeping on its course 
 
 To that supreme and all embracing Source. 
 
 Then back through all those thirsting channels 
 
 roll 
 The mighty billows of the Over Soul. 
 And I am He, the portion and the Whole. 
 
 As little streams before the flood tide flee, 
 As rivers vanish to become the sea, 
 The I exists no more, for I AM HE. 
 
THE WORD 149 
 
 The Word. 
 
 IS^StyH, a word is a gem, or a stone, or 
 Ksfll a song, 
 
 IcgW Or a flame, or a two-edged 
 M|||||| sword ; 
 
 *" Or a rose in bloom, or a sweet 
 perfume, 
 Or a drop of gall, is a word. 
 
 You may choose your word like a connoisseur, 
 
 And polish it up with art, 
 But the word that sways, and stirs, and stays, 
 
 Is the word that comes from the heart. 
 
 You may work on your word a thousand weeks, 
 
 But it will not glow like one 
 That all unsought, leaps forth white hot, 
 
 When the fountains of feeling run. 
 
150 NEW THOUGHT PASTELS 
 
 You may hammer away on the anvil of thought, 
 And fashion your word with care, 
 
 But unless you are stirred to the depths, that 
 word 
 Shall die on the empty air. 
 
 For the word that comes from the brain alone, 
 
 Alone to the brain will speed ; 
 But the word that sways, and stirs, and stays, 
 
 Oh ! that is the word men heed. 
 
ASSISTANCE 151 
 
 Assistance. 
 
 EAN on no mortal, Love, and serve ; 
 (For service is love's comple- 
 ment) 
 But it was never God's intent, 
 Your spirit from its path should 
 swerve, 
 
 To gain another 's point of view. 
 
 As well might Jupiter, or Mars 
 
 Go seeking help from other stars, 
 
 Instead of sweeping ON, as you. 
 
 Look to the Great Eternal Cause 
 
 And not to any man, for light. 
 
 Look in ; and learn the wrong, and right, 
 
 From your own soul 's unwritten laws. 
 
 And when you question, or demur, 
 
 Let Love be your Interpreter. 
 
152 
 
 NEW THOUGHT PASTELS 
 
 "Credulity. 
 
 »f 
 
 F fallacies, come knocking at my 
 door, 
 I'd rather feed, and shelter full a 
 
 score, 
 Than hide behind the black port- 
 cullis, doubt, 
 And run the risk of barring one Truth out. 
 
 And if pretention for a time deceive, 
 And prove me one too ready to believe, 
 Far less my shame, than if by stubborn act, 
 I brand as lie, some great colossal Fact. 
 
 On my souPs door, the latch-string hangs out- 
 side; 
 Within, the lighted candle. Let me guide 
 Some errant follies, on their wandering way, 
 Rather, than Wisdom give no welcoming ray. 
 
CONSCIOUSNESS 153 
 
 Co 
 
 nsciousness. 
 
 |OD, what a glory, is this conscious- 
 ness, 
 Of life on life, that comes to those 
 
 who seek! 
 Nor would I, if I might, to others 
 speak, 
 The fullness of that knowledge. It can bless, 
 Only the eager souls, that willing, press 
 Along the mountain passes, to the peak. 
 Not to the dull, the doubting, or the weak, 
 Will Truth explain, or Mystery confess. 
 
 Not to the curious or impatient soul 
 That in the start, demands the end be shown, 
 And at each step, stops waiting for a sign; 
 But to the tireless toiler toward the goal, 
 Shall the great miracles of God be known 
 And life revealed, immortal and divine. 
 
154 NEW THOUGHT PASTELS 
 
 The Structure. 
 
 PON the wreckage of thy yesterday 
 Design the structure of tomorrow. 
 
 Lay 
 Strong corner stones of purpose, 
 and prepare 
 Great blocks of wisdom, cut from past despair. 
 Shape mighty pillars of resolve, to set 
 Deep in the tear-wet mortar of regret. 
 Work on with patience. Though thy toil be slow, 
 Yet day by day the edifice shall grow. 
 Believe in God— in thine own self believe. 
 All that thou hast desired thou shalt achieve. 
 
OUR SOULS 
 
 155 
 
 Our Souls. 
 
 UR souls should be vessels receiv- 
 ing 
 The waters of love for relieving 
 The sorrows of men. 
 
 For here lies the pleasure of living: 
 In taking God's bounties, and giving 
 The gifts back again. 
 
156 
 
 NEW THOUGHT PASTELS 
 
 The L 
 
 aw. 
 
 HEN the great universe was 
 wrought 
 To might and majesty from 
 
 naught, 
 The all creative force was— 
 
 Thought. 
 
 That force is thine. Though desolate 
 The way may seem, command thy fate. 
 Send forth thy thought— 
 
 Create— Create! 
 
KNOWLEDGE 
 
 157 
 
 Knowledge. 
 
 OULD you believe in Presences 
 Unseen— 
 In life beyond tbis earthly life 1 
 BE STILL: 
 Be stiller yet ; and listen. Set the 
 screen 
 Of silence at tbe portal of yonr will. 
 Eelax, and let the world go by unheard. 
 And seal your lips with some all-sacred word. 
 
 Breathe "God," in any tongue— it means the 
 same; 
 LOVE ABSOLUTE : Think, feel, absorb the 
 thought ; 
 Shut out all else ; until a subtle flame 
 
 (A spark from God's creative center caught) 
 Shall permeate your being, and shall glow, 
 Increasing in its splendor, till, YOU KNOW. 
 
 11 
 
158 NEW THOUGHT PASTELS 
 
 Not in a moment, or an hour, or day 
 
 The knowledge comes; the power is far too 
 great, 
 To win in any desultory way. 
 
 No soul is worthy till it learns to wait. 
 Day after day be patient, then, oh, soul ; 
 Month after month— till, lo ! the goal ! the goal ! 
 
GIVE 
 
 159 
 
 Give. 
 
 IVE, and thou shalt receive. Give 
 thoughts of cheer, 
 Of courage and success, to 
 friend and stranger. 
 And from a thousand sources, far 
 and near, 
 
 Strength will be sent thee in thy hour of 
 danger. 
 
 Give words of comfort, of defense, and hope, 
 To mortals crushed by sorrow and by error. 
 
 And though thy feet through shadowy paths 
 may grope, 
 Thou shalt not walk in loneliness or terror. 
 
 Give of thy gold, though small thy portion be. 
 
 Gold rusts and shrivels in the hand that 
 keeps it. 
 It grows in one that opens wide and free. 
 
 Who sows his harvest is the one who reaps it. 
 
160 NEW THOUGHT PASTELS 
 
 Give of thy love, nor wait to know the worth 
 Of what thou lovest ; and ask no returning. 
 
 And wheresoe'er thy pathway leads on earth, 
 There thou shalt find the lamp of love-light 
 burning. 
 
PERFECTION 
 
 161 
 
 Perfection* 
 
 HE leaf that ripens only in the sun 
 Is dull and shriveled ere its race 
 
 is run. 
 The leaf that makes a carnival of 
 death 
 
 Must tremble first before the north wind's 
 breath. 
 
 The life that neither grief nor burden knows 
 Is dwarfed in sympathy before its close. 
 The life that grows majestic with the years 
 Must taste the bitter tonic found in tears. 
 
162 
 
 NEW THOUGHT PASTELS 
 
 Fear. 
 
 EAR is the twin of Faith's sworn 
 foe, Distrust. 
 If one breaks in your heart the 
 other must. 
 
 Fear is the open enemy of Good. 
 It means the God in man misunderstood. 
 
 Who walks with Fear adown life's road will 
 
 meet 
 His boon companions, Failure and Defeat. 
 
 But look the bully boldly in the eyes, 
 
 "With mien undaunted, and he turns and flies. 
 
THE WAY 
 
 163 
 
 The Way. 
 
 ETWEEN the finite and the infinite 
 The missing link of Love has left 
 
 a void. 
 Supply the link, and earth with 
 Heaven will join 
 In one continued chain of endless life. 
 
 Hell is wherever Love is not, and Heaven 
 
 Is Love's location. No dogmatic creed, 
 
 No austere faith based on ignoble fear 
 
 Can lead thee into realms of joy and peace. 
 
 Unless the humblest creatures on the earth 
 
 Are bettered by thy loving sympathy 
 
 Think not to find a Paradise beyond. 
 
 There is no sudden entrance into Heaven. 
 Slow is the ascent by the path of Love. 
 
164 
 
 NEW THOUGHT PASTELS 
 
 Understood. 
 
 VALUE more than I despise 
 
 My tendency to sin, 
 Because it helps me sympathize 
 
 With all my tempted kin. 
 
 He who has nothing in his soul 
 That links him to the sod, 
 Knows not that joy of self-control 
 Which lifts him up to God. 
 
 And I am glad my heart can say, 
 When others trip and fall 
 
 (Although I safely passed that way), 
 "I understand it all." 
 
HIS MANSION 
 
 165 
 
 His Mansion. 
 
 HERE was a thought he hid from 
 all men's eyes, 
 And by his prudent life and deeds 
 
 of worth 
 He left a goodly record upon 
 earth 
 As one both pure and wise. 
 
 But when he reached a dark unsightly door 
 Beyond the grave, there stood his secret thought. 
 It was the mansion he had built and brought 
 To dwell in, on that shore. 
 
166 
 
 NEW THOUGHT PASTELS 
 
 Effect. 
 
 N unkind tale was whispered in 
 his ear. 
 He paused to hear. 
 His thoughts were food that 
 helped a falsehood thrive, 
 And keep alive. 
 
 Years dawned and died. One day by venom's 
 tongue 
 
 His name was stung. 
 He cried aloud, nor dreamed the lie was spawn 
 
 Of thoughts long gone. 
 
 Each mental wave we send out from the mind, 
 
 Or base, or kind, 
 Completes its circuit, then with added force 
 
 Seeks its own source. 
 
THREE THINGS 
 
 167 
 
 Three Things. 
 
 NOW this, ye restless denizens of 
 
 earth, 
 Know this, ye seekers after joy 
 
 and mirth, 
 Three things there are, eternal in 
 
 their worth. 
 
 Love, that outreaches to the humblest things; 
 "Work that is glad, in what it does and brings 
 And faith that soars upon unwearied wings. 
 
 Divine the Powers that on this trio wait. 
 Supreme their conquest, over Time and Fate. 
 Love, Work, and Faith— these three alone are 
 great. 
 
168 
 
 NEW THOUGHT PASTELS 
 
 Obstacles. 
 
 The slothful man saith, There is a lion in the way; a lion 
 is in the street. — Proverbs 26: 13. 
 
 HERE are no lions in the street ; 
 No lions in the way. 
 Go seek the goal, thou slothful 
 
 soul, 
 Awake, awake, I say. 
 
 Thou dost but dream of obstacles ; 
 
 In God's great lexicon, 
 That word illstarred, no page has marred ; 
 
 Press on, I say, press on. 
 
 Nothing can keep thee from thine own 
 But thine own slothful mind. 
 
 To one who knocks, each door unlocks ; 
 And he who seeks, shall find. 
 
PRAYER 
 
 169 
 
 Prayer. 
 
 
 ■3s^I' : 
 
 H> 
 
 raj 
 
 
 
 SjfiwrB 
 
 
 
 ftl 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 EAN on thyself until thy strength 
 is tried ; 
 Then ask God's help; it will not 
 be denied. 
 
 Use thine own sight to see the way to go ; 
 "When darkness falls ask God the path to show. 
 
 Think for thyself and reason out thy plan ; 
 
 God has his work and thou hast thine, oh, man. 
 
 Exert thy will and use it for control ; 
 God gave thee jurisdiction of thy soul. 
 
 All thine immortal powers bring into play; 
 Think, act, strive, reason, then look up and pray. 
 
170 
 
 NEW THOUGHT PASTELS 
 
 Climbing. 
 
 HO climbs the mountain does not 
 always climb. 
 The winding road slants down- 
 ward many a time ; 
 Yet each descent is higher than 
 the last. 
 
 Has thy path fallen? That will soon be past. 
 Beyond the curve the way leads up and on. 
 Think not thy goal forever lost or gone. 
 Keep moving forward ; if thine aim is right 
 Thou canst not miss the shining mountain height. 
 Who would attain to summits still and fair, 
 Must nerve himself through valleys of despair. 
 
THERE IS NO DEATH 
 
 171 
 
 'There Is No Death, There Are 
 No Dead." 
 
 (Suggested by the book of Mr. Ed. C. Randall.) 
 
 HERE is no death, there are no 
 dead. ' ' 
 From zone to zone, from sphere 
 
 to sphere, 
 The souls of all who pass from here 
 By hosts of living thoughts are led ; 
 And dark or bright, those souls must tread 
 The paths they fashioned year on year. 
 For hells are built of hate or fear, 
 And heavens of love our lives have shed. 
 
 Across unatlassed worlds of space, 
 And through God's mighty universe, 
 With thoughts that bless or thoughts that 
 curse, 
 
 Each journeys to his rightful place. 
 Oh, greater truth no man has said, 
 " There is no death, there are no dead." 
 
172 NEW THOUGHT PASTELS 
 
 It lifts the mourner from the sod, 
 And bids him cast away the reed 
 Of some uncomforting poor creed, 
 
 And walk with Knowledge for a rod. 
 
 It bids the doubter seek the broad 
 
 Vast fields, where living facts will feed 
 All those whose patience proves their need 
 
 Of these immortal truths of God. 
 
 It brings before the eyes of faith 
 
 Those realms of radiance, tier on tier, 
 Where our beloved "dead" appear, 
 
 More beautiful because of ' * death. ' ' 
 It speaks to grief : "Be comforted ; 
 There is no death, there are no dead." 
 
REALIZATION 
 
 173 
 
 Realization. 
 
 ERS was a lonely, shadowed lot ; 
 Or so the unperceiving thought, 
 Who looked no deeper than her 
 
 face, 
 Devoid of chiseled lines of grace- 
 No farther than her humble grate, 
 And wondered how she bore her fate. 
 
 Yet she was neither lone nor sad ; 
 So much of love her spirit had, 
 She found an ever-flowing spring 
 Of happiness in everything. 
 
 So near to her was Nature 's heart 
 It seemed a very living part 
 Of her own self ; and bud and blade, 
 And heat and cold, and sun and shade, 
 And dawn and sunset, Spring and Fall, 
 Held raptures for her, one and all. 
 
 12 
 
174 NEW THOUGHT PASTELS 
 
 The year's four changing seasons brought 
 To her own door what thousands sought 
 In wandering ways and did not find— 
 Diversion and content of mind. 
 
 She loved the tasks that filled each day- 
 Such menial duties ; but her way 
 Of looking at them lent a grace 
 To things the world deemed commonplace. 
 
 Obscure and without place or name, 
 She gloried in another's fame. 
 Poor, plain and humble in her dress, 
 She thrilled when beauty and success 
 And wealth passed by, on pleasure bent ; 
 They made earth seem so opulent. 
 Yet none of quicker sympathy, 
 When need or sorrow came, than she. 
 And so she lived, and so she died. 
 
 She woke as from a dream. How wide 
 
 And wonderful the avenue 
 
 That stretched to her astonished view ! 
 
REALIZATION 175 
 
 And up the green ascending lawn 
 A palace caught the rays of dawn. 
 Then suddenly the silence stirred 
 With one clear keynote of a bird ; 
 A thousand answered, till ere long 
 The air was quivering bits of song. 
 She rose and wandered forth in awe, 
 Amazed and moved by all she saw, 
 For, like so many souls who go 
 Away from earth, she did not know 
 The cord was severed. 
 
 Down the street, 
 With eager arms stretched forth to greet, 
 Came one she loved and mourned in youth ; 
 Her mother followed ; then the truth 
 Broke on her, golden wave on wave, 
 Of knowledge infinite. The grave, 
 The body and the earthly sphere 
 Were gone ! Immortal life was here ! 
 They led her through the Palace halls ; 
 
176 NEW THOUGHT PASTELS 
 
 From gleaming mirrors on the walls 
 
 She saw herself, with radiant mien, 
 
 And robed in splendor like a queen, 
 
 While glory round about her shone. 
 
 "All this," Love murmured, "is you own." 
 
 And when she gazed with wondering eye, 
 
 And questioned whence and where and why 
 
 Love answered thus: "All Heaven is made 
 
 By thoughts on earth ; your walls were laid, 
 
 Year after year, of purest gold ; 
 
 The beauty of your mind behold 
 
 In this fair palace ; aye, and more 
 
 Waits farther on, so vast your store. 
 
 I was not worthy when I died 
 
 To take my place here at your side ; 
 
 I toiled through long and weary years 
 
 From lower planes to these high spheres ; 
 
 And through the love you sent from earth 
 
 I have attained a second birth. 
 
 Oft when my erring soul would tire 
 
 I felt the strength of your desire ; 
 
 I heard you breathe my name in prayer, 
 
 And courage conquered weak despair. 
 
 Ah! earth needs heaven, but heaven indeed 
 
 Of earth has just as great a need. ' ' 
 
REALIZATION 177 
 
 Across the terrace with a bound 
 
 There sped a lambkin and a hound 
 
 (Dumb comrades of the old earth land) 
 
 And fondled her caressing hand. 
 
 "YOU LOVED THEM INTO PARADISE," 
 
 Was answered to her questioning eyes ; 
 
 ' ' You taught them love ; love has no end ! 
 
 Nor does love's life on form depend. 
 
 If there be mortal without love, 
 
 He wakes to no new life above. 
 
 If love in humbler things exist, 
 
 It must through other realms persist 
 
 Until all love rays merge in HIM. 
 
 Hark ! Hear the heavenly Cherubim ! ' ' 
 
 Then hushed and awed, with joy so vast 
 
 It knew no future and no past, 
 
 She stood amidst the radiant throng 
 
 That came to swell love's welcoming song — 
 
 This humble soul from earth's far coast 
 
 The center of the heavenly host. 
 
 On earth they see her grave and say : 
 "She lies there till the judgment day;" 
 Nor dream, so limited their thought, 
 What miracles by love are wrought. 
 

 
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 JAN 89 
 
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 INDIANA 46962 
 
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