 | Songs of Doubt and Dream (Poems) |  |
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AGNOSTIC AND CHRISTIAN.
CHRISTIAN.
No bigot heart is in my breast;
Though creeds may clash, I do not care;
The certitude that brings me rest
Is rosier than auroral air.
I know that gain will follow loss,
That after suffering peace will come;
I know Christ hung upon his cross
For me, in matchless martyrdom.
Though creeds may clash, I do not care;
The certitude that brings me rest
Is rosier than auroral air.
I know that gain will follow loss,
That after suffering peace will come;
I know Christ hung upon his cross
For me, in matchless martyrdom.
AGNOSTIC.
These things you know? Yet knowledge owns
True birth from hardier force than faith;
In hills and meadows, brooks and stones,
Dwells flimsy fancy's hovering wraith.
What sways your soul with easy breath
Makes impious adamant of mine.
No Lazarus ever rose from death;
No water changed itself to wine!
True birth from hardier force than faith;
In hills and meadows, brooks and stones,
Dwells flimsy fancy's hovering wraith.
What sways your soul with easy breath
Makes impious adamant of mine.
No Lazarus ever rose from death;
No water changed itself to wine!
CHRISTIAN.
The Almighty, whose least edict awes,
May work such mandate as he wills;
From him the effect, from him the cause,
The storms and calms, the goods and ills.
We are born, live, die, at his command;
He reigns eternally sublime;
In the vast hollow of his hand
He holds us till the end of time.
May work such mandate as he wills;
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The storms and calms, the goods and ills.
We are born, live, die, at his command;
He reigns eternally sublime;
In the vast hollow of his hand
He holds us till the end of time.
AGNOSTIC.
Mark well the world wherein we bide,
Its pangs of misery, want, disease.
Is this Lord thou hast glorified
The untrammeled arbiter of these?
Do hospitals that moan with pain,
Do haunts where madness yells and leers,
Attest the triumph of his reign
In liturgies of pangs and tears?
Its pangs of misery, want, disease.
Is this Lord thou hast glorified
The untrammeled arbiter of these?
Do hospitals that moan with pain,
Do haunts where madness yells and leers,
Attest the triumph of his reign
In liturgies of pangs and tears?
CHRISTIAN.
He brings the blight, the curse, the ban;
He brings the blessing, joy or hope.
With his incomparable plan
Our mortal ken would vainly cope.
He asks us but to kneel devout
Before the wisdom of his ways,—
To drown the assailant sins of doubt
In lowly plenitudes of praise.
He brings the blessing, joy or hope.
With his incomparable plan
Our mortal ken would vainly cope.
He asks us but to kneel devout
Before the wisdom of his ways,—
To drown the assailant sins of doubt
In lowly plenitudes of praise.
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AGNOSTIC.
How stern the tyrannies you paint!
His curling lash may deal us woes,
Yet we, who are smitten till we faint,
Must bow unmurmuring to its blows.
And praise? What need of praise or blame
Hath he from our brief human term?
Though you might crush it dead, you claim
No hallalujahs from the worm.
His curling lash may deal us woes,
Yet we, who are smitten till we faint,
Must bow unmurmuring to its blows.
And praise? What need of praise or blame
Hath he from our brief human term?
Though you might crush it dead, you claim
No hallalujahs from the worm.
CHRISTIAN.
We cannot meet on common ground;
For me mankind with wonder shook
When first it learned that love profound
Which fills one mighty and sacred Book.
To those pure pages, young yet old,
All promise, grace or pardon clings;
I turn them, and I hear unfold
The pale plumes of celestial wings.
For me mankind with wonder shook
When first it learned that love profound
Which fills one mighty and sacred Book.
To those pure pages, young yet old,
All promise, grace or pardon clings;
I turn them, and I hear unfold
The pale plumes of celestial wings.
AGNOSTIC.
A book by random piecemeal wrought
From wandering fables dimly spelt,
Ere yet even mediæval thought
Had made its timorous twilights felt.
A book whose choicer texts are big
With rhapsodies of mystic phrase,
By sage, grammarian, gownsman, prig
Interpreted in myriad ways.
From wandering fables dimly spelt,
Ere yet even mediæval thought
Had made its timorous twilights felt.
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With rhapsodies of mystic phrase,
By sage, grammarian, gownsman, prig
Interpreted in myriad ways.
Or yet a book where battle and gore
Flare crude as lessons charged with cheer—
Where some red coarse Jehovah's roar
Tears reverence from the cringe of fear;
Where slavery is to honor wed,
Polygamy rank baseness feeds;
Where vengeance counts its bloody dead,
And mercy is throttled while it pleads!
Flare crude as lessons charged with cheer—
Where some red coarse Jehovah's roar
Tears reverence from the cringe of fear;
Where slavery is to honor wed,
Polygamy rank baseness feeds;
Where vengeance counts its bloody dead,
And mercy is throttled while it pleads!
A book that such raw wrath delights,
That such hot outrages o'erflow,
As Moses wrought the Midianites,
As Joshua poured on Jericho.
A book whose God oped nostrils wide
For fumes of burning ox and sheep,
His paltry power being pacified
When Pharaoh slaughtered babes in sleep!
That such hot outrages o'erflow,
As Moses wrought the Midianites,
As Joshua poured on Jericho.
A book whose God oped nostrils wide
For fumes of burning ox and sheep,
His paltry power being pacified
When Pharaoh slaughtered babes in sleep!
CHRISTIAN.
Sneer, if you wish, at tales like those,
Where dream with history may have blent,
Yet spare the immortal word that grows
From Apostolic Testament;
It stays a joy no jar may shock,
A surety of holy rest, release,
A dovecote round whose doorways flock
Flute-throated doves with eyes of peace.
Where dream with history may have blent,
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From Apostolic Testament;
It stays a joy no jar may shock,
A surety of holy rest, release,
A dovecote round whose doorways flock
Flute-throated doves with eyes of peace.
He came, He wrought, He bled, He died,
For you, for me, for all men born,
Till gloriously beatified
He rose on resurrection-morn.
And ah, since then his memory glows
Like lamps of help through storm's dark stress,
Or fire of that red blood which flows
Hot from the heart of righteousness.
For you, for me, for all men born,
Till gloriously beatified
He rose on resurrection-morn.
And ah, since then his memory glows
Like lamps of help through storm's dark stress,
Or fire of that red blood which flows
Hot from the heart of righteousness.
Above the ironic scoff, above
The lustiest hate cold logic gives,
For nigh two thousand years of love
His testimony untarnished lives.
Though soft they rang, those words He spake
Were leashed with echoes loud and free,
Still buoyed on all the winds that wake,
Still regnant in the unrestful sea!
The lustiest hate cold logic gives,
For nigh two thousand years of love
His testimony untarnished lives.
Though soft they rang, those words He spake
Were leashed with echoes loud and free,
Still buoyed on all the winds that wake,
Still regnant in the unrestful sea!
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AGNOSTIC.
Why did not Christ, if God indeed,
Behold the future clear-unfurled,
With feuds that in his name would breed
Their wild disasters on the world?
Why saw he not how wrangling sects
Would soon his meek ideals beslime,—
How dogmatism would turn his texts
To bannered shibboleths of crime?
Behold the future clear-unfurled,
With feuds that in his name would breed
Their wild disasters on the world?
Why saw he not how wrangling sects
Would soon his meek ideals beslime,—
How dogmatism would turn his texts
To bannered shibboleths of crime?
Below cathedrals towering strong,
That hailed him with aerial spires,
He must have heard what shrieks erelong
Would peal from faction's greedy pyres.
All persecution's direst pains
Omniscience like his own foreknew—
Fierce Torquemada's racks and chains,
Or frenzy of St. Bartholomew.
That hailed him with aerial spires,
He must have heard what shrieks erelong
Would peal from faction's greedy pyres.
All persecution's direst pains
Omniscience like his own foreknew—
Fierce Torquemada's racks and chains,
Or frenzy of St. Bartholomew.
To-day, when reason's poignant flame
Has lit the paths where blindness trod,
It should be intellectual shame
To grant that Christ was one with God.
Howe'er tradition's tongue may prate,
Belief its faded embers fan,
That man hath less of manlier weight
Who holds that Christ was more than man!
Has lit the paths where blindness trod,
It should be intellectual shame
To grant that Christ was one with God.
Howe'er tradition's tongue may prate,
Belief its faded embers fan,
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Who holds that Christ was more than man!
CHRISTIAN.
Allow no grim calumnious trace
Be found your bitter speech to stain,
What wretched gloom would wrap the race
Were trust in sweet redemption slain!
Oh, call the dawn the day's dull close,
The lily a harlot, if you will,
But leave to prayer that rich repose
Its Heavenward incense can distil!
Be found your bitter speech to stain,
What wretched gloom would wrap the race
Were trust in sweet redemption slain!
Oh, call the dawn the day's dull close,
The lily a harlot, if you will,
But leave to prayer that rich repose
Its Heavenward incense can distil!
How should we dare through life to go,
If last and first it should express
The unmeaning prelude played to show
A drama of dreary nothingness?
How should we dare, like aimless fools,
Build purposes of moral might,
Were these but splendid vestibules
To chaos and eternal night?
If last and first it should express
The unmeaning prelude played to show
A drama of dreary nothingness?
How should we dare, like aimless fools,
Build purposes of moral might,
Were these but splendid vestibules
To chaos and eternal night?
Off sovereign faith once rudely tear
The purple and sceptre it has known,
And pagan sensualism will glare
Like a new Nero's from its throne!
Ah, once let mortal minds hold vain
What shelter of pardon they could win,
And blasphemy strikes up the strain
Despair goes dancing to with sin!
The purple and sceptre it has known,
And pagan sensualism will glare
Like a new Nero's from its throne!
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What shelter of pardon they could win,
And blasphemy strikes up the strain
Despair goes dancing to with sin!
AGNOSTIC.
That loftier fortitude I bless
Which rates all creeds as empty strife,
Yet dares be duteous, none the less,
To every large demand of life.
I envy not the ethic range
Of him whose virtues would require
That wrong and right should interchange
For so much Heaven like so much hire.
Which rates all creeds as empty strife,
Yet dares be duteous, none the less,
To every large demand of life.
I envy not the ethic range
Of him whose virtues would require
That wrong and right should interchange
For so much Heaven like so much hire.
Look firm on death, our common lot;
Fare near it with unfaltering gait;
Die like the patriot soldier, not
The dullard mercenary of fate.
Nor deem philanthropy hath laws
To dole thee pay like sordid pelf;
Love thou thy fellow-man because
To hate him were to soil thyself!
Fare near it with unfaltering gait;
Die like the patriot soldier, not
The dullard mercenary of fate.
Nor deem philanthropy hath laws
To dole thee pay like sordid pelf;
Love thou thy fellow-man because
To hate him were to soil thyself!
Raze church and temple; worship kill;
Strike all religions till they reel;
Humanity is an altar, still,
Where man may reverently kneel.
In acts of high unsullied worth
Lives all of Heaven our souls may guess;
The only atheist here on earth
Is he that scorns their godliness!
Strike all religions till they reel;
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Where man may reverently kneel.
In acts of high unsullied worth
Lives all of Heaven our souls may guess;
The only atheist here on earth
Is he that scorns their godliness!
| Songs of Doubt and Dream (Poems) | |