The Poetical Works of George Barlow :: :: University of Virginia Library

Progress ever! Pure and holy shines the light of morning, slowly
Brightening all that seemed so evil, changing sad things into sweet!
Man the victor, man the giant, lord of all things, self-reliant,
Shall be crowned with golden sunshine, darkness trembling at his feet.

II

But the vanquished? What of roses that the summer morn discloses
Lying pale and bruised and sodden in the miry heedless way?
What of violets in the hollows that no sunshine guards and follows,
Lying loveless, doomed and helpless, trodden slowly into clay?

III

One succeeds—a thousand falter. One to marriage's white altar
Brings in triumph sweet and solemn the pure footstep of his bride.
With her wedding-robe around her, lo! what angel-hands have crowned her:
All the summer brings its lilies, all is joy and peace and pride.

IV

But another, even fairer, with a wealth of passion rarer,
Lovelier far, it may be, hidden in the soul's depths dark and lone,
Through the horror of the passion that the lewd streets mould and fashion
Will pass downward towards the blackness circling Satan's lurid throne.

V

Oh, the misery to perceive it, the compulsion to believe it,
That for every deed of virtue wrought beneath the approving sun

There is balance in some terror, some mad sin, some piteous error,
Some huge triumph of the darkness, some vast evil wildly done!

VI

Lo! in every generation the bright daughters of the nation
Bring to sweet life here in England all their purity, their power.
When the blossoms flame in splendour, then girl-blossoms far more tender
Bring their wealth of pure soul-fragrance, many a white or rose-flushed flower.

VII

Yet at that same moment, sinking deep and surely hellward, drinking
With their pale wan lips for ever of a shame no tongue can tell,
There are women man would die for, some that angels' souls must sigh for,
Plunging downward, ever downward, while strange laughter rings from hell.

VIII

To the vanquished woe eternal! Yes, the sentence base, infernal,
Seems in blood-red letters written on the universe's walls.
For the victor gratulation, joy and songs and acclamation!
Scorn and anguish never-dying for the soul that fails and falls!

IX

To the poet bring his laurel. Then for years dispute and quarrel
Over all he loved and fought for. Take his sins, his errant deeds:
Let the sun's full light embellish these, enlarge with instinct hellish;
Cast them down amid the garbage where the prowling critic feeds.

X

Let his brave deeds be forgotten,—let them perish, rankling, rotten,
Lost amid wild waves of rancour! Pour your uttermost disdain

On a sin that was a sorrow, wrought, repented of to-morrow:
Overlook, ignore for ever, all the love and all the pain.

XI

To the weak ones woe for ever! Let them rise to gladness never!
Christ discerned his Father's likeness in the pure face of a child.
Yet the children, how they perish! Some would succour, some would cherish:
Yet the children grow life-weary, long before they even have smiled.

XII

Oh, our valour scientific, what avails it when terrific,
Vast, unceasing, stern, tremendous, still the fight for life prevails?
Yea, the gentlest sooner falling, all in vain for help are calling,
All in vain, in vain for ever, for some blind god holds the scales.

XIII

Is the struggle of life extending to the stars,—do they too, blending
Life with starry life, it may be, ever fill the fields of space,
Where the thunders roar and rattle, with the din of deadliest battle,
Shifting ever rank and order, changing post and task and place?

XIV

Might we some day wake and murmur, “Heaven, we thought secure and firmer
Than the solid earth we tread on, with its ceaseless starry rays,
Heaven itself is safe no longer, Change and Time have proved the stronger:
Lo! uncounted starry wreckage chokes the dark sky's gulfs and bays.”

XV

To the weaker woe unbending! Dream of life, life never-ending:
Dream again, and shudder dreaming of what endless life may be!

Life with every hour a sorrow for the conquered, grief tomorrow,
Deeper grief on the day after, so throughout eternity.

XVI

Nation after nation bleeding in the huge strife, still succeeding
To another nation's riches, keeps the contest still alive.
Here again the weakest perish. Not the lands the pure gods cherish,
But the strongest, still the strongest, nations iron-wrought, survive.

XVII

Woe for ever to the weak ones, to the tenderest souls, the meek ones,
To the loving, to the gentle, to the hearts that sympathize!
Not on them the victory hinges, on the war-flag's blood-stained fringes
Rather, on the smoke of battle and the fire-gleam in the skies.

XVIII

Yet...a Figure rises slowly, laurelled not, no conqueror, lowly,
One too tender for the struggle, whom the world-gods slew with scorn.
Has he still, that vast heart broken, one more word of love unspoken?
Is his hand upon the rudder? Can his eyes foresee the morn?

1904.