The Poems of Richard Watson Gilder

This is my creed,
This be my deed:
“Hide not thy heart!”
Soon we depart;
Mortals are all;
A breath, then the pall;
A flash on the dark—
All's done—stiff and stark.
No time for a lie;
The truth, and then die.
Hide not thy heart!

II

Forth with thy thought!
Soon 't will be naught,
And thou in thy tomb.
Now is air, now is room.

169

Down with false shame;
Reck not of fame;
Dread not man's spite;
Quench not thy light.
This be thy creed,
This be thy deed:
“Hide not thy heart!”

III

If Gods is, He made
Sunshine and shade,
Heaven and hell;
This we know well.
Dost thou believe?
Do not deceive;
Scorn not thy faith—
If 't is a wraith,
Soon it will fly.
Thou, who must die,
Hide not thy heart!

IV

This is my creed;
This be my deed:
Faith, or a doubt,
I shall speak out
And hide not my heart.

“THE POET FROM HIS OWN SORROW”

The poet from his own sorrow
Poured forth a love-sad song.
A stranger, on the morrow,
Drew near, with a look of wrong,

170

And said: “Beneath its pall
I have hidden my heart in vain—
To the world thou hast sung it all!
Who told thee my secret pain?”

“WHITE, PILLARED NECK”

White, pillared neck; a brow to make men quake;
A woman's perfect form;
Like some cool marble, should that wake,
Breathe, and be warm.

A shape, a mind, a heart,
Of womanhood the whole:
Her breath, her smile, her touch, her art,
All—save her soul.

“GREAT NATURE IS AN ARMY GAY”

Great nature is an army gay,
Resistless marching on its way;
I hear the bugles clear and sweet,
I hear the tread of million feet.
Across the plain I see it pour;
It tramples down the waving grass;
Within the echoing mountain-pass
I hear a thousand cannon roar.
It swarms within my garden gate;
My deepest well it drinketh dry.
It doth not rest; it doth not wait;
By night and day it sweepeth by;
Ceaseless it marcheth by my door;
It heeds me not, tho' I implore.
I know not whence it comes, nor where
It goes. For me it doth not care—

171

Whether I starve, or eat, or sleep,
Or live, or die, or sing, or weep.
And now the banners all are bright,
Now torn and blackened by the fight.
Sometimes its laughter shakes the sky,
Sometimes the groans of those who die.
Still through the night and through the livelong day
The infinite army marches on its remorseless way.

“LIFE IS THE COST”

I

Life is the cost.
Behold yon tower,
That heavenward lifts
To the cloudy drifts—
Like a flame, like a flower!
What lightness, what grace,
What a dream of power!
One last endeavor
One stone to place—
And it stands forever.

II

A slip, a fall;
A cry, a call;
Turn away, all's done.
Stands the tower in the sun
Forever and a day.
On the pavement below
The crimson stain
Will be worn away
In the ebb and flow;
The tower will remain.
Life is the cost.

172

THE PRISONER'S THOUGHT

I

Is't I for whom the law's brute penalty
Was made; to whom the law once seemed a power
Far off and not to be concerned withal?
Am I indeed this rank and noisome thing
Fit for such handling; to be pushed aside
Into a human, foul receptacle,—
A fetid compost of dull, festering crime—
Even not meet for nutriment of earth,
But only here to rot in memories
Of my own shame, and shame of other men?
Here let me rot, then—there's a taste one has
For just the best of all things, even of sin.
He's a poor devil who in deepest hell
Knows no keen relish for the worst that is,—
The very acme of intensest pain,—
Nor smacks charred lips at thoughts of some dear crime,
The sweetest, deadliest, damnablest of all.
Sometimes I hug that hellish happiness;
And then a loathing falls upon my soul
For what I was, and am, and still must be.

II

And this same I—there comes to me a time,
And often comes, when all this slips away;
Stays not one stain, nor scar, nor fatal hurt.
Perhaps it is a sort of waking dream;
But if I dream, I'm breathing audibly,
I feel my pulse beat, hear the talk and tread
Down these long corridors; see the barred blue
Of the cell's window, hear a singing bird—
Yes, O my God, I hear a singing bird,
Such as I heard in childhood. Now, you think,

173

I dream I am a child once more. Not so;
I am just what I am: a man in prison—
(Damn them! I'm innocent of what they swore
And proved—with cant, and well-paid perjury;
Tho' other crimes, they know not of, I did)—
But suddenly my soul is pure as yours;
My thought as clean; my spirit is as free
As any man's, or any purest woman's.
I think as justly, as for instance, sir,
You think; as circumspectly, wisely, freely,
As does my jolly keeper, or the smith
Who enters once a day to try the bars
That shut my body out from freedom! Not
My soul. Why, this my soul has thoughts that strike
Into the very hights and depths of Heaven.
You'll think it passing strange, good friend, no doubt.
'T is strange; but here's a further mystery:
Think you that in some other living state
After what we call death,—or in this life,—
The thinking part of us we name the soul
Can ever get away from its old self;
Can wash the earth all off from it, that so
It really will be, what I sometimes seem—
As sinless as a little child at birth,
With all a woman's love for all things pure,
And all a grown man's strength to do the right?

THE CONDEMNED

Thou art not fit to die?—Why not?
The fairest body ripes to rot.
Thy soul? O, why not let it go
Free from the flesh that drags it low!
To die! Poor wretch, do not deceive
Thyself—who art not fit to live.

174

“SOW THOU SORROW”

Sow thou sorrow and thou shalt reap it;
Sow thou joy and thou shalt keep it.

TEMPTATION

Not alone in pain and gloom,
Does the abhorrèd tempter come;
Not in light alone and pleasure
Proffers he the poisoned measure.
When the soul doth rise
Nearest to its native skies,
There the exalted spirit finds
Borne upon the heavenly winds
Satan, in an angel's guise,
With voice divine and innocent eyes.

A MIDSUMMER MEDITATION

I

Face once the thought: This piled up sky of cloud,
Blue vastness, and white vastness steept in light,—
Struck through with light, that centers in the sun,—
This blue of waves below that meets blue sky;
But a white, trembling shore between, that sweeps
The circle of the bay; this green of woods,
And keener green of new-mown, grassy fields;
This ceaseless, leaf-like rustle of the waves;
These shining, billowy tree-tops; songs of birds;
Strong scent of seaweed, mixt with smell of pines;
Face once this thought: Thy spirit that looks forth,
That breathes the light, and life, and joy of all,
Shall cease, but not the things that pleasure thee;

175

They shall endure for eyes like thine, but not
For thine own eyes; for human hearts like thine,
But not for thine own heart, all dust and dead.

II

Face it, O Spirit, then look up once more,
Brave conqueror of dull mortality!
Look up and be a part of all thou seest.
Ocean and earth and miracle of sky,
All that thou seest, thou art, and without thee
Were nothing. Thou, a god, dost recreate
The whole; breathing thy soul in all, till all
Is one wide world made perfect at thy touch.
And know that thou, who darest a world create,
Art one with the Almighty, son to sire—
Of His eternity a quenchless spark.

AS DOTH THE BIRD”

As doth the bird, on outstretched pinions, dare
The dread abysm's viewless air,
Take thou, my soul, thy fearless flight
Into the void and dark of death's eternal night.

VISIONS

I

Cast into the pit
Of lonely sorrow,
The suffering soul,
Looking aloft,
Sees with amaze
In the daytime sky
The shine of stars.

176

II

Came to him once
In the seething town
A form of beauty,
Innocent brow,
And soul of youth;
Deep, sweet eyes,
An angel's gaze,
And rose-leaf lips
That murmured low:
“I, lost, forgotten,
Long left, long dead,
I am thy sin.”

III

With full-toned beat
Of the happy heart,
In a day of peace,
In an hour of joy,
Once in my life
And only once,
Of a sudden, I saw,
The end of all!
—Death!

WITH A CROSS OF IMMORTELLES

When Christ cried: “It is done!”
The face of a small red flower,
Looking up to the suffering One,
Turned pale with love and pain,
And never shone red again.
In memory of that hour

177

Which holds the secret of bliss;
And the darker secret of sorrow
That shall come to each, to-morrow;
Sweet friend, I send you this.

THE PASSING OF CHRIST

I

O Man of light and lore!
Do you mean that in our day
The Christ hath past away;
That nothing now is divine
In the fierce rays that shine
Through every cranny and thought;
That Christ as he once was taught
Shall be the Christ no more?
That the Hope and Savior of men
Shall be seen no more again;
That, miracles being done,
Gone is the Holy One?
And thus, you hold, this Christ
For the past alone sufficed;
From the throne of the hearts of the world
The Son of God shall be hurled,
And henceforth must be sought
New prophets and kings of thought;
That the tenderest, truest word
The heart of sorrow hath heard
Shall sound no more upon earth;
That he who hath made of birth
A dread and sacred rite;
Who hath brought to the eyes of death
A vision of heavenly light,
Shall fade with our failing faith;—

178

He who saw in children's eyes
Eternal paradise;
Who made the poor man's lowly
Labor a service holy,
And sweat of work more sweet
Than incense at God's feet;
Who turned the God of Fear
To a father, bending near;
Who looked through shame and sin
At the sanctify within;
Whose memory, since he died,
The earth hath sanctified—
Hath been the stay and the hold
Of millions of lives untold,
And the world on its upward path
Hath led from crime and wrath;—
You say that this Christ hath past
And we cannot hold him fast?

II

Ah, no! If the Christ you mean
Shall pass from this time, this scene,
These hearts, these lives of ours,
'T is but as the summer flowers
Pass, but return again,
To gladden a world of men.
For he,—the only, the true,—
In each age, in each waiting heart,
Leaps into life anew;
Tho' he pass, he shall not depart.

Behold him now where he comes!
Not the Christ of our subtile creeds,
But the lord of our hearts, of our homes,

179

Of our hopes, our prayers, our needs;
The brother of want and blame,
The lover of women and men,
With a love that puts to shame
All passions of mortal ken;—
Yet of all of woman born
His is the scorn of scorn;
Before whose face do fly
Lies, and the love of a lie;
Who from the temple of God
And the sacred place of laws
Drives forth, with smiting rod,
The herds of ravening maws.

'T is he, as none other can,
Makes free the spirit of man,
And speaks, in darkest night,
One word of awful light
That strikes through the dreadful pain
Of life, a reason sane—
That word divine which brought
The universe from naught.

Ah, no, thou life of the heart,
Never shalt thou depart!
Not till the leaven of God
Shall lighten each human clod;
Not till the world shall climb
To thy hight serene, sublime,
Shall the Christ who enters our door
Pass to return no more.

180

CREDO

How easily my neighbor chants his creed,
Kneeling beside me in the House of God.
His “I believe” he chants, and “I believe,”
With cheerful iteration and consent—
Watching meantime the white, slow sunbeam move
Across the aisle, or listening to the bird
Whose free, wild song sounds through the open door.

Thou God supreme—I too, I too, believe!
But O, forgive, if this one human word,
Binding the deep and breathless thought of Thee
And my own conscience with an iron band,
Stick in my throat. I cannot say it, thus—
This “I believe” that doth Thyself obscure;
This rod to smite; this barrier; this blot
On Thy most unimaginable face
And soul of majesty.

'T is not man's faith
In Thee that he proclaims in echoed phrase,
But faith in man; faith not in Thine own Christ,
But in another man's dim thought of him.

Christ of Judea, look thou in my heart!
Do I not love thee, look to thee, in thee
Alone have faith of all the sons of men—
Faith deepening with the weight and woe of years.

Pure soul and tenderest of all that came
Into this world of sorrow, hear my prayer:

Lead me, yea, lead me deeper into life,
This suffering, human life wherein thou liv'st

181

And breathest still, and hold'st thy way divine.
'T is here, O pitying Christ, where thee I seek,
Here where the strife is fiercest; where the sun
Beats down upon the highway thronged with men,
And in the raging mart. O! deeper lead
My soul into the living world of souls
Where thou dost move.

But lead me, Man Divine,
Where'er thou will'st, only that I may find
At the long journey's end thy image there,
And grow more like to it. For art not thou
The human shadow of the infinite Love
That made and fills the endless universe!
The very Word of Him, the unseen, unknown
Eternal Good that rules the summer flower
And all the worlds that people starry space!

NON SINE DOLORE

I

What, then, is Life,—what Death?
Thus the Answerer saith;
O faithless mortal, bend thy head and listen:

Down o'er the vibrant strings,
That thrill, and moan, and mourn, and glisten,
The Master draws his bow.
A voiceless pause; then upward, see, it springs,
Free as a bird with disimprisoned wings!
In twain the chord was cloven,
While, shaken with woe,
With breaks of instant joy all interwoven,
Piercing the heart with lyric knife,

182

On, on the ceaseless music sings,
Restless, intense, serene;—
Life is the downward stroke; the upward, Life;
Death but the pause between.

II

Then spake the Questioner: If 't were only this,
Ah, who could face the abyss
That plunges steep athwart each human breath?
If the new birth of Death
Meant only more of Life as mortals know it,
What priestly balm, what song of highest poet,
Could heal one sentient soul's immitigable pain?
All, all were vain!
If, having soared pure spirit at the last,
Free from the impertinence and warp of flesh,
We find half joy, half pain, on every blast;
Are caught again in closer-woven mesh—
Ah! who would care to die
From out these fields and hills, and this familiar sky;
These firm, sure hands that compass us, this dear humanity?

III

Again the Answerer saith:
O ye of little faith,
Shall, then, the spirit prove craven,
And Death's divine deliverance but give
A summer rest and haven?
By all most noble in us, by the light that streams
Into our waking dreams,
Ah, we who know what Life is, let us live!
Clearer and freer, who shall doubt?
Something of dust and darkness cast forever out;

183

But Life, still Life, that leads to higher Life,
Even tho' the highest be not free from the immortal strife.

The highest! Soul of man, O, be thou bold,
And to the brink of thought draw near, behold!
Where, on the earth's green sod,
Where, where in all the universe of God,
Hath strife forever ceased?
When hath not some great orb flashed into space
The terror of its doom? When hath no human face
Turned earthward in despair,
For that some horrid sin had stampt its image there?

If at our passing Life be Life increased,
And we ourselves flame pure unfettered soul,
Like the Eternal Power that made the whole
And lives in all He made
From shore of matter to the unknown spirit shore;
If, sire to son, and tree to limb,
Cycle on countless cycle more and more
We grow to be like Him;
If He lives on, serene and unafraid,
Through all His light, His love, His living thought,
One with the sufferer, be it soul or star;
If He escape not pain, what beings that are
Can e'er escape while Life leads on and up the unseen way and far?
If He escape not, by whom all was wrought,
Then shall not we,—
Whate'er of godlike solace still may be,—
For in all worlds there is no Life without a pang, and can be naught.
No Life without a pang! It were not Life,

184

If ended were the strife—
Man were not man, nor God were truly God!
See from the sod
The lark thrill skyward in an arrow of song:
Even so from pain and wrong
Upsprings the exultant spirit, wild and free.
He knows not all the joy of liberty
Who never yet was crusht 'neath heavy woe.
He doth not know,
Nor can, the bliss of being brave
Who never hath faced death, nor with unquailing eye hath measured his own grave.
Courage, and pity, and divinest scorn—
Self-scorn, self-pity, and high courage of the soul;
The passion for the goal;
The strength to never yield tho' all be lost—
All these are born
Of endless strife; this is the eternal cost
Of every lovely thought that through the portal
Of human minds doth pass with following light.
Blanch not, O trembling mortal!
But with extreme and terrible delight
Know thou the truth,
Nor let thy heart be heavy with false ruth.

No passing burden is our earthly sorrow
That shall depart in some mysterious morrow.
'T is His one universe where'er we are—
One changeless law from sun to viewless star.
Were sorrow evil here, evil it were forever,
Beyond the scope and help of our most keen endeavor. God doth not dote,
His everlasting purpose shall not fail.
Here where our ears are weary with the wail

185

And weeping of the sufferers; there where the Pleiads float—
Here, there, forever, pain most dread and dire
Doth bring the intensest bliss, the dearest and most sure.
'T is not from Life aside, it doth endure
Deep in the secret heart of all existence.
It is the inward fire,
The heavenly urge, and the divine insistence.
Uplift thine eyes, O Questioner, from the sod!
It were no longer Life,
If ended were the strife;
Man were not man, God were not truly God.

University of Virginia Library

5. PART V

HIDE NOT THY HEART

I

II

III

IV