Poems of affection by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

I know a Temple filled with light,
And whoso enters there—
Feels suddenly that life is bright,
Whatever his despair.
A lustre from an unseen height
Makes all the darkness fair.

Within this Temple rings the sound
Of labour linked to mirth:
For here is where lost dreams are found
To beautify the earth.
And here is where crushed hopes rebound
To glorious new birth.

This Temple of the Prayerful Mind
Has room for every creed:
And here each reverent soul may find
A solace for his need.
It is the Garden of the Blind,
Grown up from Love's pure seed.

Such radiance fills every face
Within these ample walls—
I know God moves about the place.
And animates those halls.
From worlds magnificent in Space
I know His splendour falls.

Oh ye who have not mortal sight,
Teach me to see, I pray!
Teach me to vivify the night,
So it may shine like day.
And in God's opulence of light
To go upon my way.

ARE YOU LOVING ENOUGH?

Are you loving enough? There is some one dear,
Some one you hold as the dearest of all
In the holiest shrine of your heart.
Are you making it known? Is the truth of it clear
To the one you love? If death's quick call
Should suddenly tear you apart,
Leaving no time for a long farewell,
Would you feel you had nothing to tell—
Nothing you wished you had said before
The closing of that dark door?

Are you loving enough? The swift years fly—
Oh, faster and faster they hurry away,
And each one carries its dead.
The good deed left for the by and by,
The word to be uttered another day,
May never be done or said.

Let the love word sound in the listening ear,
Nor wait to speak it above a bier.
Oh the time for telling your love is brief,
But long, long, long is the time for grief.
Are you loving enough?

IF I COULD UTTER

If I could utter all the love I feel
Surging within me for God's Universe;
I think the very sun itself would reel
Upon its orbit, stirred by strong emotion.
And all the stars, as in a radiant ocean,
Would in my heart their beauteous beams immerse:
If I could utter all the love I feel.

If I could utter my great love for all
The countless forms of upward reaching life:
The vine, that strains toward God upon the wall,
The patient ant, intent upon its duty,
The human, blindly seeking truth and beauty.
No longer would earth's creatures live in strife—
If I could utter my great love for all.

If I could utter love to all the earth
So men would grasp the meaning of the word,
Then would each soul know its immortal birth—
Its mighty goal—its glorious beginning,
And there would be no sorrow and no sinning,
Nor anything but joy for all who heard
If I could utter love to all the earth.

If I could utter my vast love for God
Who set my soul upon its karmic course,
Who fashioned every way my feet have trod,
Who builded spiral stairs for my ascending;
Oh, then would He bring my long path an ending,
And I would sink again into the Source
If I could utter my vast love for God.

WEATHER-VANES

When fierce temptations lure the brave and strong
To wander into ways they know are wrong,
The Lords of Wisdom (God's high Cabinet)
Commune together, saying with regret,
‘Great natures by great sins are oft beset;
Through suffering they shall their lesson learn,
And wiser, back to nobler lives return.’

But Angels feel a deeper sorrow when
The weak unfocused wills of unworthy men,
Like weather-vanes, turn, on each wayward breeze
Some selfish, peevish woman's whim to please.

Have you not seen the husband or the son,
Bound by the ties of law or blood to one

Of those self-centred creatures, losing sight
Of his fine sense of justice and of right—
That sense God gives to lead the race to light?
Forced all against the instincts of his heart
In petty bickerings to take a part,
Or driven by whining words and stabs and stings
To show approval of ignoble things.
His high ideals of honour overthrown
By lower aims of ‘standing by his own,’
However wrong or foolish or unkind
His own might be?
Such women drag and bind
The better nature of a man, and blind
His eyes to visions of the Christ within.

A larger hope shines for a larger sin
Through sorrow or repentance, soon or late.
But these anæmic souls disintegrate.

The weather-vane, when winds have ceased to blow,
Rots on the roof-tree, lacking strength to go
Or here, or there, or upward, or below.

Strong thoughts build heavens and hells; and from the fire—
The self-created flames of wrong desire—
Repentant souls rise up to regions higher.

But he whose will is by another slain
Has built no heaven to which he can attain.

SOLD

Out of the window I look from my stall
For the last, last time, and I see them all.
Master and mistress, and children dear,
That have loved and petted me many a year;
And for many a year it has been my pride
To give them pleasure in drive and ride.

Never a blow from my master's whip;
Nothing but kindness from hand or lip;
A well-kept stable and stalls of state—
And whatever means comfort for me and my mate.
Shining harness, and trappings of gold—
And blankets and bedding to keep out cold!
Oh a beautiful life we have had, I say;
But now it is over; they sold us to-day.

A monstrous creature whose voice and breath
Bespeak it a herald of horror and death,
Has taken our place. In the curve of the drive,
Stolid and shapeless and unalive,
I see it standing. In stables and stall
They are widening doorways and moving a wall
To give it shelter. To-morrow we go
To a home and master we do not know.

We know not whither; we know not whether
We go divided, or go together.
But we know we are leaving the things grown dear;
And we know a stranger will take us from here;
And stranger voices and stranger faces
Will make a desert of other places.

Out in the driveway my master stands,
Petting his monster with eyes and hands.
While mistress and children the praises sing
Of a stolid and shapeless and senseless thing.
It makes no answer with whinny or neigh,
Yet we are to go, and the Thing will stay.

Out of the window I look from my stall
For the last, last time, and I see them all.

DEVILS

God made man and man made devils—
All of earth's evils
Are shaped and moulded by mortal thought
Carelessly fashioned or carefully wrought,
Life after life and time on time,
Thought-forms grow into creatures of crime,
Roaming about in the Regions of Mind,
Mischief to find.

Monstrous devils there are grown bold
Through ages untold;
Devils old
With sins repeated and unrepented,
Devils demented
By their own passions and lusts and greeds,
Or by steady diets of moss-grown creeds—

History tells how these devils would boil
Their differing brothers in kettles of oil:
And we know how the Maid of Orleans fared!
Still, if they dared,
Devils there are who would do it again,
Stalking among us as sanctified men.
Bleating aloud of their love for God,
Yet using the rod
Or the scourge on some brother whose faith seems too broad.

Imps of jealousy, envy and spite,
Grow into big devils, sometimes in a night,
Big, black, red-eyed devils of war,
Whom we all abhor.

There are feminine devils who must, I opine,
Have been mermaids or fishes, when seaward the swine
Ran over the cliffs and were drowned; but the Legion
Of devils was saved, for it found in that region
Mermaids and jelly-fish ready to give
All the comforts of home, and to help them to live.

Then into forms human
Each came as a woman:
Delilah, and Jezebel, Lilith and all
Females who stand but that others may fall:
And females who gossip and stir up strife,
And are thorns in the flesh of the neighbourhood life.

But the worst type of all, of the many that roam
Abroad in the land, is the devil at home.
A narrow-souled, mean little devil of self—
A petulant elf
Who smiles on the street, but at his (or her) board
Sits scowling or groaning or saying some word
That hurts those who hear it;
A mosquito-like spirit
That keeps up a buzzing and maddening hum,
And only is dumb
While sinking its sting into somebody's heart.
Oh this is the devil who plays a large part
In the world everywhere: yet full often his voice
(Or hers) in the churches is heard to rejoice
Over certain salvation for those who ‘believe.’
Alas! You poor devils, you cannot deceive

The God of the Universe. You will be driven
Straight out of His heaven
Back into the sea by the Christ as of old:
And you will behold
Your thoughts and your deeds coming back on yourself,
You mean little petulant home-spoiling elf.

God made man and man made devils;
But all earth's evils
Will wear themselves out as the cycles roll,
And nothing will live but the God in each soul.

THE WAY TO PEACE

I know that a soul in the making
Must drink deep of sorrow and pain;
And the joys of the body forsaking,
Must suffer and never complain.
I know that my spirit is waking
To the glory that waits me in space;
Yet the heart of me, dearest, is breaking
For the sight of your face.

I know that by weeping and sighing
We hamper the search of a Soul;
And I know I am certainly trying
To let you attain your goal.
But I think you have paused in your flying,
And somehow it makes me rejoice;
Yet the heart in me, dearest, is dying
For the sound of your voice.

I know you are near me forever,
I know you are helping alway.
You strengthen each righteous endeavour,
And counsel me day after day.
But these fetters of clay I would sever
By the touch of death's infinite power,
For the heart of me, dearest, can never
Know peace till that hour.

THE PATH ASCENDING

I am not alone, for ever by me
There moves a Spirit you do not see:
A Spirit whose body has turned to dust,
But the soul keeps living as all souls must,
And it speeds through Ether to be at my side,
And soothe and comfort, and help and guide.

At night when in slumber my body is still,
And sleep has silenced my human will,
This Spirit calls to me softly and low,
And out of my body I rise and go
To visit the regions where some glad day
My soul unfettered shall go and stay.

When my soul slips back in my body at dawn,
Vague are my dreams of the night agone:

For my Spirit lover has told me this—
That world is a world of such perfect bliss
I could not go on with my duties here
If I brought back memories keen and clear.

So he gives me only memories dim,
And the courage and strength of those hours with him;
And over the Ether as over a sea,
Whenever I call him, he comes to me,
And sometimes, sometimes, the power is given,
For wonderful messages straight from heaven.

Spirits go oft from the earth away,
Leaving unsaid what they meant to say.
And we who love them, by prayer may reach
And softly open the door of speech.
‘For nothing impossible shall be indeed
To one with the Faith of a mustard seed.’

‘But this kind goeth howbeit not out
Save by prayer and fasting,’ and conquering doubt;
Ceaseless the praying, and fervent the faith
That opens the doorway. closed by death.

But the door has opened, and Spirits free
From earthly fetters have talked with me.

The door has opened—and now I know
Much of that Region to which I go.
This earth is only a transient place,
Worlds Eternal lie out in Space,
Worlds Eternal and life Unending,
And the path to the grave is a path ascending.

Oh, sorrowing mourners of earth to-day,
Your dead are hovering near alway;
And ever they seek for a path to come
And say through the silence, ‘We are not dumb.’
I speak of the things that I know to be,
For my Spirit lover has talked with me.

VOYAGES

It was some times in the late Spring,
But oftener in the Fall,
When the Gypsy blood woke in you,
And I would hear you call—
‘Oh, put your hand in mine, dear,
And come along with me;
It's a fair world—a rare world,
With much for us to see.’

Oh, how you loved the old ships
From topmasts to the hulls!
And how you loved new harbours,
And salt winds, and the gulls;
I never hear one crying,
I never smell the brine—
But I can feel that your hand
Is reaching out for mine.

You sailed one night in Maytime,
All secretly, alone.
You went to some new Harbour
We two had never known.
I called you through the darkness,
But the wind was from the sea:
My sad cries—my mad cries—
Were all blown back to me.

But some time in the late Spring,
Or mayhap in the Fall,
Your ship will be returning
And I shall hear you call—
‘Oh, put your hand in mine, dear,
And come along with me
To a rare world, a fair world
Across an Astral sea.’

THROUGH THE VALLEY

As I go through the Valley all alone,
(Though many walk beside me, and before,
And many follow, yet alone is each),
I hear low voices in an undertone
Striving on wounded human hearts to pour
The balm and solace of Celestial speech.
So long it seemed a blurred, unmeaning sound,
But now I grasp its import—tense—profound
As I go through the Valley.

As I go through the Valley whose deep streams
Are fed by tears, that flow from human eyes,
(Those rivers without bridges to the past,
Save as we build them of our fragile dreams),
I see an Arc of Triumph dimly rise
Through which my shadowed path will wind at last.
The Voices whisper—‘Just beyond that Gate
The souls you hunger to behold, await,’
As I go through the Valley.

As I go through the Valley, life makes clear
Three radiant truths like torches for my mind:
The road to Knowledge is the road of Prayer.
The tranquil heart creates the listening ear.
God tells His secrets but to souls resigned.
So patiently upon my way I fare,
With emptied pitcher moving on my course,
Knowing that I shall fill it at the Source,
As I go through the Valley.

‘I'LL CARRY ON!’

Oh hard are the tasks life gives us all
From the hour of birth to death.
And though in our cup sweets mix with gall,
And our sorrows are soothed by faith,
Yet the happiest life seems sometimes gray
And the brightest sun looks wan,
And three little words are all we can say—
‘I'll carry on!’

You wake from a beautiful dream some morn,
A dream of pleasure and youth—
And you find yourself in a world forlorn
Where pain is the only truth.
Or you find that love with Fate has fled,
And you are alone in the dawn:
And you say to the pitiless days ahead—
‘I'll carry on!’

You pride yourself on your vigour and health,
And the power to do your bit:
But the pilfering years creep in by stealth,
And lo! you are found unfit.
But you must not give up the game, my friend,
Or cry that all hope is gone;
But call on God and say—‘To the end
I'll carry on!’

And after the beautiful end comes near,
And you stand so close to the gate
You can dimly see, and faintly hear
The glories for which you wait.
You may bring a smile to the angels' eyes
If you say as the veil is drawn,
And you see work waiting in Paradise—
‘I'll carry on!’

WAIT

The universe was stirred as by an unseen Force,
Planets upon their orbits slackened speed, and even hurrying comets on their course
Paused, peering through the vastnesses of space,
And listened curiously. The imperturbable, calm face
Of Father Time displayed an eager flush—
A light reflected from a distant dawn.
Upon the world there came a sudden hush;
All nature stood in silence. Winds and seas
And ancient forests of long-whispering trees
Were stilled. And then there broke
Upon the astonished air, the terrible, deep beauty of His voice—
The voice of God, who spoke
And called to judgment—Germany!

‘Thou spirit of a wonderful great land’
(Thus spake the Voice),
‘Dowered by Me with genius and with might,
Thou, who wert meant to bring the world more light,
And make the races of the earth rejoice
With thy colossal part of beauty and of art,
What hast thou done, O thou ungrateful one,
With all the benefits bestowed on thee?
Hast thou not sought with secret plan and plot
For half a hundred years to rule the world
And gain dominion over land and sea,
Though in the dust My holy laws were hurled?
Hast thou not profanated My own Name,
Saying that I was with thee—I, the God
Of all the universe—while verdant sod
Turned crimson with the blood thy minions spilled—
The blood of women and of children killed
In devil-schemes of frightfulness? Has not
The splendid vigour of Teutonic thought
Been wrenched from its high altitude, and brought
Down to Satanic levels? Mind and soul,
Which might have made thee comrade of My sons
(The great archangels of the worlds of Space),
Hast thou not turned from their immortal goal

To fashion blatant guns? Still worse!
Hast thou not brought upon the world the curse
Of hatred, and compelled aspiring lands
To dip in human blood unwilling hands
To save their women's virtue—forced their fall
Down to thy level, in the bitter fight
For decency and right? Yea: all
Of these black crimes are marked against thy score—
And more—still more!

‘Until this cycle of the world's life ends
Thou shalt walk through earth's pathways without friends,
Bearing thy self-made burden of men's hate,
Uncrowned, dishonoured, while about thee rise
Stupendous structures reaching to the skies—
The New Republic's Allied Brotherhood,
Whose highways lead to Universal Good.
Thou shalt pass humbly down them to the gate
Of Time's next cycle.’

‘Then what after?’ ‘Wait!
Justice will claim reprisals soon or late.’

MOTHERS OF SONS

Mothers of Sons, Mothers of Sons,
Do you hear the guns?
The terrible guns that are bellowing death
With every breath.
Oh, why are you sending your precious ones
To follow and feed the guns?

We are sending our sons to the hell of war
To meet the duties we bore them for:
The duty of doing what in their sight
Seems just and right;
The duty of helping the fainting souls
To find their courage and gain their goals;
And the duty of cutting before full grown
The harvest of tares, by tyranny sown,
And weeding its tangle of roots all out
So never again may a stalk of it sprout.

Though our sons may fall and our hearts sup sorrow,
We are helping the race to a fairer morrow.
Life at longest is here but a span,
But endless the life of the spirit of man;
And the growth of a soul through deeds of worth
Is the aim and purpose of life on earth.
Better die young for a cause or a creed
Than to live a satisfied slave of greed.
We counted the cost ere we told them to go,
And the price we must pay for their valour we know.
But down through the ocean of blood there runs
A Gulf Stream of love from the Source of the Suns,
And whoever follows his highest thought
Shall into God's harbour of peace be brought.

Mothers of Sons, Mothers of Sons,
Friends or Enemies, Allies or Huns,
God will take care of your precious ones.

THE HORSE

DEDICATED TO THE BLUE CROSS SOCIETY

The man who goes into the fight
With the heart of a volunteer,
Has the high ideal of doing right,
To conquer his pain and fear;
And the man who is forced to go
Has his pride, and his will, and his faith,
To help him over the road of woe
To the goal of a crutch, or death.

But the steed that is dragged from his stall
To be plunged in the hell of war—
Why, what does he know of the country's call,
Or the cause he is suffering for?
But I think when he lies in his pain,
Tortured and torn by the fray,
He must long for a touch of a hand on his mane,
And the fields where he used to play.

The world as we see it now
Is only half man-made;
As the horse recedes with a parting bow
We know the part he has played.
For the wonderful brain of a man,
However mighty its force,
Had never achieved its lordly plan
Without the aid of the horse.

The forests felled by hand
By the horse were carried away;
And furrow and field were made to yield
By his willing toil each day.
He helped bring true in this age
The visions our forbears saw;
And oft was given a grudging wage—
Scant fare and a bundle of straw.

The horse has no passion to kill
Like man and the tiger and bear;
Yet, slave of a murderous will,
To the front of the fight he must fare.

Now the heart of a horse has love
For the master and home it knew:
And the mind of a horse can prove
That memory dwells there too.

Oh, I think on the blood red sod
Each wounded man prays to God:
And I think from the heart of a steed
There must rise in his hour of need
A cry for his master who seems
A god in his equine dreams.

THE DANCE OF THE ELVES

In the rocks of Granite Bay
Fairies sleep the live-long day,
And up in the Deepwood trees
Fairies are as thick as bees.

If you have the open sight
You may see them any night
In the Dimple dressed in spray,
Where they come to dance and play.

Fairies big and Fairies small,
And Fairies just no size at all,
Up and off on heel and toe,
Trip, trip, trip and away they go.

Near the dawn and near the dark
Fairies dance in Deepwood Park.
Deepwood Fairies dance and glide,
Then on moonbeams off they ride.

The Bungalow, Granite Bay, Connecticut, U.S.A., was the author's home.

‘LITTLE KIDS’

‘Little kids,’ you call us
As we are at play.
You were little children
Just the other day.

Now to-morrow nears us,
Soon we too shall stand
Men and women rulers
Of the sea and land.

‘Little kids’ at play time:
But at home or school
Think about our future,
Make us fit to rule.

Guide us wisely onward—
Teach us what is true.
Though we are but kiddies
We are watching you!

Give us good examples!
While we are at play,
Often we are aping
What you do and say.

DISCREDITED

Three million women without mates
In lonely homes on earth!
And Cupid sighs at heaven's gates,
Where many a spirit ego waits
Its call again to birth.

Three million women, meant to be
The mothers of the race!
But when war reaps on land and sea
Its harvests for Eternity,
Poor Hymen hides his face.

I think Earth has discredited
Itself in God's good sight:
He does not care to have souls bred,
Where peace, and love, and joy are fled,
Until we set things right.

He meant earth for a Garden Spot
Where spirits could return,
And build new heavens as they ought;
And now behold! what men have wrought
By deeds that blight and burn.

So, vain the waiting egos quest
For pathways back to birth:
And vain the longing and unrest
In many a cheated mother breast.
God does not like the earth!

It must be cleansed and purified
Of selfishness and strife,
Of grasping greed and lust and pride,
Before He lets His Angels guide
The egos back to life.

THE RETICENCE OF THE DEAD

I

Although I have been sweetly comforted
By messages that came to me from space,
Anent the life of that transcendent place,
Yet when the utmost has been done and said,
There is a strange reserve about our dead;
A reticence, whose cause I can but trace
To our own lack of comprehending grace;
Our failure to attain the paths they tread.
Freed from both Time and Space, those beings live
Where speech needs but the vehicle of thought
To tell all kindred souls what they should know.
But, when we call they come to us, and give
Some portions of those truths which we have sought,
Then sudden, wrapt in reticence, they go.

II

Our atmosphere—our language—all is dense
To those unfettered souls in Ether clad;
Our clumsy ways of speech to them seem sad—
So large has grown their vision—so intense;
So wide their knowledge of death's recompense
They wonder why small proofs should make us glad,
Forgetting that vast sorrow we have had
In loss of them (and in their reticence).
Oh, my dear dead, you have been kind—so kind—
Bringing to my poor broken heart the proof
Of Life Eternal. Now show me the way
To that high Realm where thought is unconfined,
And Soul from Soul no longer stands aloof:
There is so much—so much for us to say.

THE NEED

This Age of Woman has produced a race
That sets the very gods agape in space,
And keeps our small world wondering ‘what next’;
Yet not so often now the cry, ‘Unsexed!’
Falls on our ears. The death is very slow
Of old traditions, yet at last they go
Into the vault of time.

Woman has risen
Out of her kitchen-prison,
Out of the sewing-room environment
Into the larger world, where she was meant
To be man's comrade and co-worker. Art,
Commerce, and science, all proclaim the part—
The noble part the modern woman plays—
And never in the old-time house-drudge days

Was she so fitted for the rôle of wife
And mother as in this new-knowledged life,
Where babies grow like plants, if like plants fed,
And like plants bred
From virile seeds.
A motherhood has come the whole world needs.

But there is something else this world of noise
Needs just now sadly—one of its best joys—
The restful woman, who, amidst earth's riot,
Is eloquently quiet,
Knowing that stillness means not being dull,
But like the sunshine, bright and beautiful,
And warm with tender, life-producing forces.
The stars upon their courses
Move quietly; the music of the spheres
Is so attuned it does not hurt the ears
Of listening angels; but the thunder's clatter,
The noise of winds that scatter
The quivering leaves of meditative trees,
The loud-mouthed seas,
Telling their deeds of violence—all these
Weary the listening, pained heart of earth.

Sad and protesting is the cry of birth,
Awesome the silent majesty of death.
The silence following that last-drawn breath
We know is opulent with God. No sound
Can ever hold such meaning vast, profound.

Between the rivers and the seas of talk
Let us plant islands of sweet silences,
Where weary voyagers may pause and walk
And know that there God is.

PLANS

I thought to make a peaceful home,
Earth's sweetest gift and best,
But Fate said sternly, ‘Go and roam
On highways of unrest.’

I planned to help a Soul in need
With open heart and purse;
It only woke ignoble greed
And proved the mortal's curse.

I tried to cast a radiant way
On Sorrow's shadowy path;
But Sorrow turned her face away
And cursed me in her wrath.

I said, ‘I will walk on alone
In ways toil fills with flowers.’
Fate answered in an undertone,
‘Nay, you shall walk in ours.’

Quoth I, ‘In service all attain
Contentment, I am sure.’
Fate flung me on a bed of pain,
And simply said, ‘Endure!’

Though all my plans have been laid low,
The choicest and most dear
Will yet be realised I know:
Fate cannot interfere.

I shall meet Death adown the road,
That wise and glorious one
Who tells us as he lifts our load
That Life has just begun.

I shall go with him to the place
Where spirit comrades wait:
Again shall I behold the face
Of my Eternal Mate.
Yea, Death and I shall win the race,
O impotent, stern Fate!

THE ENLISTED MEN

There are many splendid soldiers
With insignias on their shoulders;
When I meet them on the street, up goes my hand.
And with military motion, I express extreme devotion:
Both my homage and respect these men command.

But I somehow have a feeling
All too earnest for concealing,
When I meet the private soldiers day by day;
And my heart leaps up, saluting
Those who, quite beyond disputing,
Are the men who must go deepest in the fray

Theirs the duties unremitting—
Theirs the pleasures brief and flitting—
Theirs the hard and dull routine work in the rear.

Theirs to march on, uncomplaining,
Be it hot, or be it raining;
Theirs to plunge into the fight when foes are near.

Theirs to make a lowly station
Shed great glory on the Nation:
And if need be, theirs to die to save the land.
So, dear fellows, I salute you!
And I know Death will transmute you
Every one into a General in God's band.

ONE OF OUR DAYS

This is one of our days, dear heart,
Of scents and sounds and weather;
And everything speaks of the old earth ways
When we two were together.
In spite of my knowing your spirit is near,
As you over and over declare it,
I want your face, and your voice, and your touch
In the old earth way—oh, I want them so much!
It is all I can do to bear it.

I was a desolate soul so long
After your flight to heaven:
And then the Universe broke into song
Because of your messages given.
And now I never more feel alone;
You have said, and I must believe you,
That ever your spirit dwells near in Space.
Yet to-day for your touch, and your voice, and your face
I am weeping, dear, though it grieve you.

Oh, often I feel I am quite content
To let you be living in glory;
For the things you have told me since you went
Make life a beautiful story.
And the time, at longest, cannot be long
Ere we are again together;
But I want you now in the dear earth ways!
For this is one of our old sweet days
Of scents and sounds and weather.

I know I shadow the light of your soul
Whenever I fall to weeping:
And I shadow my own clear sight of the goal
When storms go over me sweeping.
But this is one of our days, dear heart,
Old memories all are waking;
And I want you back as you used to be,
To clasp, and to touch, and to hear, and to see.
Oh, dearest, my heart is breaking!

AUSTRALIA ANSWERS

How did you answer England's cry, when it fell upon your ear?
With four hundred thousand fighting men, each one a volunteer!
And where did you come to England's aid, when she called you across the sea?
We came to her at the Anzac Cove—we came at Gallipoli.
We came in the dawn of an April day that was sweet with the young Spring's breath,
And the Hounds of Hell were waiting us there, with a devil's trap of death.

And what did you do to foil the foe, when you reached that steep cliff path?
Go ask the Cyclone to tell you the way it tears through the earth in wrath!

Go ask the Lightning to tell you tale of its felling a forest tree!
Or the terrible story of tidal waves, as they rush inland from the sea!
For that is the way we swept up over the Turks at Gallipoli!

And our dead we left in the devil's trap and our dead we left on the hill
We know are alive on the Other Side, and loving and helping us still.
For the soul of a man who dies for the Right is stronger when free from clay,
And the boys who went down in that April dawn are with us day by day.

Four hundred thousand fighting men—all volunteers to a man!
And each one built in body and mind, on the big Australian plan.
We have the courage that God sends down to earth through open spaces:
Where men can see suns rise and set, and feel the wind on their faces.

And this was the courage that drove us up the cliff through the smoke of guns
To plant our banner upon its peak, and tear down the rag of the Huns.
And it won us the right to wear the name of England's loyal sons.

How did we answer our Mother's call when it fell upon our ear?
With four hundred thousand fighting men, and each one a volunteer!

AT THE FORK OF THE ROAD

At the fork of the road the turrets rise
Of the Half-way House to Paradise;
At the end of the path where we meet our dead,
And we rest there a while ere we forge ahead.

When forth together of old we fared,
'Twas the stopping places for which I cared:
Wayside hostelry, inn, or tent,
House or cabin held sweet content,
When under one roof we snugged together,
And little mattered the place or weather.

Wide were our wanderings hand in hand,
Far we journeyed by sea and land:
And the longest and hardest day found grace
In our tender thoughts of the resting place.

But now alone on my way I go,
And the thrill of motion is all I know.
To keep on going or East, or West,
Northward, or Southward, and with no quest,
Nowhere lingering under God's dome,
Since out of earth's lexicon death struck ‘Home.’
No aim pursuing—(save day by day
Doing the duties that come my way);
No one seeking, since in no place
On the whole great globe can I see your face;
Alone for ever, though crowds are near—
It is so I must finish my journey here,
Until at the last my path shall blend
Into your own at the long day's end.

Where the two paths blend at the fork of the road
We will dwell together in love's abode;
We will rest and love for a thousand years
Before we journey to higher spheres:
We will live and love and dream and pray,
And a thousand years shall seem as a day.

Nowhere is rest for the soul of me
Till the House at the fork of the road I see.

I hurry along, but the time is slow
As ever alone on my way I go,
And the thrill of motion is all I know.

At the fork of the road the Rest House stands,
The Half-way House to Loftier Lands;
At the end of the path where dead meet dead
And live and love ere they forge ahead,
On the white steep path that must be trod
Alone by each soul as it goes to God.

FIGHTERS

[_]

(Written for the surgical wards of Camp Hospital 27, at Tours, France)

Fights in the open, and fights in the air—
Battles on billows, and battles below;
The whole world hears of them—all men know
The story of heroes who do and dare.
But few know the battles that have to be won
After the strife at the Front is done.

I weave my laurel, and give my praise
To the soldier who lies on his hospital cot,
And batters away with the bullets of thought
At his fierce foe ‘Pain,’ through the nights and the days—
Through the weeks and the months: and who will not yield,
But drives his enemy out of the field.

For I hold it is harder to lie in your bed
And stare at a ceiling, and four dull walls,
Than to fight in the open, where sunlight falls,
And with God's big Universe over your head.
And the soldier in bed must keep ever in drill
With the great machine-gun of the human will.

He must fire away, till an answer is given;
And Forces Invisible come to his aid.
For these are God's Camps, where earth's heroes are made;
And hard is the training at Camp Twenty-Seven!
Three cheers for the fighters, whose courage and faith
Have overcome anguish and driven off Death.

GOOD MOTHERS

I think God has with stars impearled
The words: ‘Good Mothers of the World.’
But that has not made scant supply
Of stars remaining in the sky;
For what the Maker means by ‘good’
Is not that word as understood
By men and women who, to-day,
Walk in tradition's ruts and say
‘Good mother’ of some selfish soul
Who for her children wants the whole
Of all earth's blessings, with no care
How other mothers' children fare.

She lions seize the lion's share
For their own cubs; but that same bent
Of impulse was not God's intent

For mothers of the human race.
Man should mount upward to his place
Close to immortals. Steep the climb—
Needing each moment of the time
To earth allotted. This the work
The rare good mother does not shirk—
Leading the young, outreaching mind
To thoughts of kinship for its kind,
Showing the way to larger joys
By sharing of the childish toys,
And stamping on the waxlike brain
This truth: All mankind is a chain—
Each life a link or great or small,
United portions of the All;
And he who harms a living thing
Harm to the whole vast world must bring.

Good Mothers rouse in each young soul
Its latent power of self-control.
The builder—Mind—receives from her
Timbers for lofty character.
And from the soil up to the skies,
She helps the structure spread and rise.

DOROTHY PERKINS ROSE

Dorothy Perkins, long agone,
Was white, white, white as the breast of a swan,
Till a roving bee, in a cloak of gold,
Stared straight in her face, so the tale is told.
And that is the reason, the gossips think,
Why Dorothy Perkins turned to pink.

Then much elate was the bee, as he thought
Of the wonderful change his glance had wrought;
And the story is told by the wind from the South
That the bee kissed Dorothy right on the mouth.
And that is the reason, so it is said,
Why Dorothy Perkins turned to red.

LITTLE BRIDE IN WHITE

What are all your thoughts about,
Little Bride in White?
Has love put each fear and doubt
In your questioning heart to rout
And made all things bright?

Does it seem a solemn hour,
Little Bride in White?
Or is earth a garden spot
Where from flower to flower
Flit your butterflies of thought
In a dancing flock,
With no wish or power
Their frail, fluttering wings to lift
Higher than a wedding gift,
Or a wedding frock?

You, the receiver of many gifts to-day, O Little Bride in White!
From this hour onward to the end of life
It must be you who gives, if you seek happiness.
You must give love.
Love is a rope of gold braided with many strands, and needing a lifetime for the making.

See to it that no strands of straw enter into the weaving.
Gentleness and wisdom, patience, faith and trust,
And the firm fibre of unselfishness—all these things must
Be woven day by day into love's rope.
And hope
So radiant it gives a lustre to the night,
And loyalty so strong it conquers time and death.
Weave, weave, Little Bride in White.

Learn how to use the common homely threads
In making love's rope strong enough to bear
Earth's strain and strife:
Order and prudence and sweet sympathy—
A large appreciation of small joys,

And gratitude that speaks in words and acts,
Long recollection of all pleasant things
And quick forgetfulness of what seemed ill;
A sense of humour and a gift of tact,
And understanding of the charm that lies
In silent pauses in the song of life.
Weave, weave, Little Bride in White.

Weave love's rope into a mighty cable, that shall bring your
Marriage Bark over dangerous seas, into the Harbour of Companionship.
Weave, Little Bride in White.

FRANCE, I HAVE EVER LOVED YOU

Oh, I have ever loved you, beauteous France:
Yea, I have loved you from the first
Glad day I saw you in your radiant prime,
Smiling, and somewhat wanton and aware
And unashamed of your delinquencies.
Aware of your own beauty too, and quite
Indifferent or unbelieving, if one said
That beauty or idealism dwelt in any land but France!

And yet you seemed to bind me with a leash
Of tenderness from that initial hour.
You took my heart between your pliant hands
And pressed out memories of old vanished lives,

When I in other bodies was a part of your great past.
Those memories are fragrant, like a summer night
After a rain; and always when I touch your magic shores
They steal out from Infinitudes of Space
And indistinctly whisper of dead selves and long departed eras.

Now once again have I dwelt with you, France:
My heart has beaten with your torn heart through dread hours,
And felt the impotence of sympathy
To right colossal wrongs. And I have seen
The first wide wonder waken in your soul
When stalwart armies and majestic ships
Crossed death-charged seas, to lay low at your feet—
Your tired feet, the concept of a young new world's idealism.
And I have wept while you, dry eyed, revealed red gaping wounds,
And went upon your way with that high look
Which has replaced your riant wanton smile:

That look of one who sees a brilliant star
Rising above a wilderness of graves,
With promise of a great and solemn dawn.

Oh, I have ever loved you, beauteous France,
And now! And now!

THE VOICE OF THE CRUTCH

I am the voice of the crutch,
And over the whole world's noise
The new world rising from the blood-stained dust
And ashes, and smouldering ember—
Over earth's pæan of hopes and joys,
And its reborn faith and trust,
My voice shall be saying ‘Remember,’
With my thump, thump, thump, I shall say to the world ‘Remember.’

I shall thump my wearisome way
Down over decades to be;
My voice will be heard for threescore years,
A dissonant note in life's measure.
A jarring refrain in its song of glee

That will change youth's laughter to tears,
And shadow its moments of pleasure.
With my thump, thump, thump, I shall shadow earth's moments of pleasure.

All over the whole wide world,
As I thump out my note of pain,
The cry of the maimed and blind and deaf
Shall into a chorus swell it;
For the voice of Peace cannot utter a strain
That shall drown war's story of sin and grief,
And mine is the task to tell it.
With my thump, thump, thump, I shall go through the world and tell it.

I shall tell the story of war,
And murder and lust and wrong;
Of deeds too dark to be given name;
Of children sired by a sabre;
And a hybrid race will join in my song,
While a sad world listens in shame
As it bends to its peaceful labour.
With my thump, thump, thump, I will sing to it in its labour.

I would hinder the growing world
As it hurries along in the race
And builds for beauty and peace,
From thinking of war as glory.
I would have it look war in the face
With a horror that cannot cease
Through knowing the truth of the story.
With my thump, thump, thump, I will tell to the last that story.

THE GREATEST WARRIOR

The greatest warrior in the world
Is Cupid with his lance;
He stands upon Columbia's shores
And hurls it into France.
It pierces through two hearts at once
And binds them with its power.
And every blood drop from their wounds
Becomes an orange flower.

Then Cupid speeds to Heaven's gate
And rings a golden bell;
To Washington and Lafayette
He has a tale to tell.
Those lofty spirits, smiling, say
‘Your work our praise commands,
Another link of love is formed
Between our glorious lands.’

THE QUEST OF THE SEA OF LOVE

The inlands of the Middle West
Are far from sounding seas!
And where my early years were spent
Not even running rivers lent
Their music to the breeze.
But there were billowing fields of grain
That ofttimes mocked the green-hued main
When Summer decked the leas.

Yet always in those early years
I felt a sweet unrest;
And deep within the heart of me
There was a longing for the sea:
The reindeer in my breast
Seemed ever eager to set forth,
As reindeers in the snowbound north
Make once their briny quest.

It must have been the voice of Love
That this strange longing stirred:

For when I found the sea one day
It was dear Love that led the way,
And they became one word.
Love was the sea, the sea was Love,
And all life's joy was made thereof
When once that voice I heard.

Now oceans, islands, sounds and seas,
And ports where vessels lie,
And harbours where they sail away,
And surging billows decked in spray
Where wide-winged seagulls fly,
And beaches where the bathers rove.
All, all are properties of Love
With their blue arching sky.

The glaciers and majestic Alps,
The mountains filled with ore,
The cities with their mighty throngs
Are yours—but unto me belongs,
To Love and me, each shore,
Where all the billows of the world
By God's tremendous hand are hurled,
And ours is all their store.

We sailed, and sailed, and sailed again
Our wonder seas of earth;
We sailed to every port and clime,
We laughed at danger and at time,
And life was full of mirth;
And joy was in our sea-girt home,
And when we roamed, joy, too, would roam
And bunk beside our berth.

But one May night Love sailed away
Across a mystic sea;
I know not why he went alone
To some far harbour all unknown,
Nor how this thing could be
That suddenly he should embark
On that strange vessel in the dark
Without one call to me.

Love left me all the seas of earth
And all their cargoed ships;
And memories within each hold
More precious than a mine of gold,
But joy is in eclipse,
And must be, till I, too, enroll

On that same ship, and my freed soul
From out the harbour slips.

And though all seas and ships are mine,
By right of Love made so,
Yet when that craft that came at night
Shall come again for my delight
Is not for me to know:
I only know I cannot fail
To see at last its splendid sail
And leap on board and go.

THE WOMEN WHO ARE AT HOME

They are as brave as any man who goes
Forward to face our foes
On battle fronts. These women of each land,
Who proudly take their stand
And with no protest, face and not shirk
The unaccustomed work,
Which helps the Ship of State to ride the wave
With banners flying: Brave
As any soldier at the Front, I say,
These women are who do men's work to-day.

The warriors of the world could not be fed,
Or clothed, or comforted;
The nations could not carry on their toil
Did they not till the soil,
And keep the wheels of action moving on.

These women from whose homes the men have gone—
Husbands and fathers, brothers, sons, to fight
In this great cause of justice and of right
Against inhuman might.

Theirs are the wounds no medicine can heal.
The anguish that they feel
May not be uttered: with a smiling face
Each fills her lonely place,
And sends a cheering message over seas.
Oh, it is such as these
Who give the radiance of an oriflamme
To sanctify the name
Of womanhood! Unto this noble throng
Honour and praise and gratitude belong.
Low at their feet I lay my leaf of song.

SONS AND DAUGHTERS

Sons and daughters seven,
Beauty and good health;
All the gifts of Heaven,
And earth added wealth.

Sons on land and water,
Khaki-clad and fit;
Every lovely daughter
Glad to do her bit.

Riches, talents, beauty,
Comfort, pleasure, ease;
On the shrine of duty
Now are offered these.

Once we talked of classes,
Middle, high, and low;
Now the whole land's masses
But one purpose know.

Just to be deserving
Of Columbia's praise;
Serving, serving, serving,
That's the thought these days.

THE BALLOT

So you are through with it,
Through with the strain of the fight,
And the ballot is won—
Now what will you do with it?
How will you prove you were right
In the things said and done?

Oh, in the use of it,
Now must you speak to the race
What the race needs to hear.
Let no abuse of it
(Seeking for honours and place)
Give the world cause to sneer.

You have talked loud and long,
Voicing a Cause that was right
And a claim that was just.
Let no least cloud of wrong
Rise now to shadow your light—
Oh, be true to your trust!

Out of the strain of strife,
Out of earth's brief troubled span,
And of all that we do,
This makes the gain of life—
Just to fit into God's plan,
And to always ring true.

Nothing is permanent:
Honours or glory or pelf
Are but dewdrops at dawn.
But in God's firmament
Souls that have conquered all self
Will for ever shine on.

THE LIFTED CUP

My heart is lifted like an empty cup:
Lord, let it be filled up.
It has been cleansed of every earth desire
By pain's consuming fire.

It has been emptied of each selfish thought,
And now I ask for nought
But light, and knowledge of Thy heavenly sphere
To strengthen me while here.

Not for myself do I this boon implore,
That my small light be more,
But that on other troubled hearts I may
Cast Thy illuming ray.

Already, God, Thou hast sent me through the dark
A wonderful bright spark.
Already has the Valley where I grope
Grown radiant with hope.

Already can I say to souls in woe
Those daring words, ‘I know’!
‘I know through death's dark pathway, we ascend
To glory at the end.’

My heart is lifted like an empty cup:
Oh, let it be filled up,
That I may share it with each fainting soul
Striving to reach Thy goal.

RECONSTRUCTION

How shall we reconstruct this battered world?
How gather up the fragments one by one,
And then re-do the work that was undone
When law and order to the dust were hurled:
That which peace builded in a hundred years,
At war's fell touch, in one day disappears.

Before the task that greets the startled eye
The race heart trembles, troubled and afraid.
Out of such chaos can a world be made?
It needs the courage of a God to try!
War has not only laid earth's structures low—
But faith and hope and courage seemed to go.

The retrospective, sorrowing mind of grief
Was never known to have constructive power.
Begin on thine own self—begin this hour
To call back aspiration and belief.
Then try to grasp Jehovah's dauntless thought,
Who builded solar systems out of nought.

Thou art Jehovah's counterpart: look up
And know thy prowess: life on earth is meant
Only for man to grasp the Great Intent,
And from the Spirit's source, to fill his cup.
There is no recognition of the whole
Until God wakes in every separate soul.

In the large laboratory of the mind
Work out the reconstruction of thy heart
Until each thought—each impulse—does its part
Toward building that new world where men are kind,
Where love is law, and that word Brotherhood,
Long mouthed by men, at last is understood.

We may not lift each column from the sod,
Nor to Cathedrals give their ruined grace,
But we can build foundations for the Race,
The Super Race, that bears the traits of God.
Oh, long the pathway, and the toil intense!
On thine own self—on thine own self—commence.

‘SEPARATION WITHOUT DIVORCE’

If it be true, as wise men say,
That all of us were beasts one day:
Then I am sure I was, indeed,
A weary, hungry, homing steed,
And you the dog that threatened danger
Beside the hay-filled manger.

You were the type of woman who gives a man the dare,
And I was only human and Spring was in the air.
Life in its mating season and youth with its lack of reason,
And oh, your eyes, your hair!

Our bridal morn was glory which faded all too soon,
Life was another story ere set our honeymoon.
The eyes that dared now told me you did not care to hold me
Before our day reached noon.

You followed your own pleasure, with no regard for mine;
You poured out meagre measure of love's delicious wine.
And when you saw me leaving, of sorrow and of grieving
You gave no smallest sign.

And yet to balk and bind me is your ambition now,
Lest joy and peace should find me with freedom from my vow:
The vows by love once spoken in sight of God are broken
When love is dead, I trow.

And yet you will not free me from bondage that is pain;
And you delight to see me walk fettered by your chain.
And though you do not want me, your pleasure is to taunt me
That all my hopes are vain.

LOVE

The longer I live and the more I see
Of the struggle of souls towards the heights above,
The stronger this truth comes home to me—
That the Universe rests on the shoulders of love,
A love so limitless, deep, and broad,
That men have re-named it, and called it God.

And nothing that was ever born or evolved,
Nothing created by light or force
But deep in its system there lies dissolved
A shining drop from the great Love source;
A shining drop that shall live for aye;
Though kingdoms may perish and stars decay.

VICTORY—1918

Stupendous was the hour and way
That glorious Victory came:
God's finger left upon that day
An aureole of flame.
For though brave banners were unfurled
Along her conquering course,
Yet Victory's message to the world
Was one of moral force.

No thundering car with rolling drum,
And fettered foes beside,
Proclaimed that Victory had come
Intolerant in her pride.
She came as might a noble queen,
Across the blood-stained sod;
And on her beauteous brow was seen
The Majesty of God.

No thought of prowess or of might
Shone on her earnest face;
But justified, triumphant right
Gave her a solemn grace.
O Victory! Since man had birth
Upon Time's troubled shore,
You never turned upon the earth
So fair a mien before!

100

MAY NOT THIS THING BE?

My love has not been long in heaven,
And there is much to see—
Fair ways to go, great souls to know,
And yet it may not be
Until his spirit finds the path
That leads him back to me.

Imperious was the call he heard
To join the countless dead;
He could not stay, but went away
And left so much unsaid.
And now he searches for the road
Returning spirits tread.

That road winds in among the stars,
And has been trod by hosts.
And yet the route is not marked out
With milestones or with posts.
I fear my love may go astray
In that strange land of ghosts.

101

Old angels of the universe
Who understand the way,
Wise veteran souls who know all goals—
Come to his aid, I pray,
And show my love the shortest road
Back to the earth to-day.

Oh! never since sad Mary stood
Beside the tomb at dawn,
Was need like mine of some last sign
From one who has passed on;
And like unto mine own, the need
Is of my loved one gone.

I will not ask to keep him here
When his dear face I see,
Nor does he seek more than to speak
One little word to me.
Such things have been since time began—
Lord, may not this thing be?

102

ON WITH THE DANCE

We have come over death-charged seas, to fight the foes of France;
The foes of France, the foes of earth, the foes of God on high.
Oh, think not that because we laugh, because we sing and dance,
We have forgotten this grave fact—to-morrow we may die.
The ocean billows leap and lilt, when tides are at full flow,
But never yet a wave forgot the depths that lay below.

As David danced before the Lord, we dance now in our joy
At being part of this great force for justice and for truth.
Strong as the old Olympian gods that won the siege of Troy,

103

We glory in our brawn and brain, and in our splendid youth.
We glory in the right to live, and use our manhood's dower,
And, if need be, the right to die in this stupendous hour.

America holds out her hand to beautiful, brave France,
Her friends are ours, her foes are ours. On! On now with the dance.

106

A MIRAGE

It was the crowded hour of the great city,
And through its long streets rushed
Trams, motor trucks, and automobiles,
And there was honk of horn, and clang of bell.
Then suddenly the din seemed hushed.
The people paused a moment in their hurry.
A curious spell
Fell over that loud scene, as down the street
A pair of pretty ponies drew a surrey;
And in it sat a lady with a bonnet—
A quaint affair with just one posy on it,
And narrow strings tied underneath her chin.
The man who drove the ponies seemed to be
A picture from old Godey's Magazine,
Materialised. The city's din
Died down, and voices of a village choir
Trailed on the air! A pastoral scene

107

With glimpses in the distance of the sea
Replaced tall city structures. Life was quiet,
And there was time for reverie and song.
The surrey passed from sight. A trolley gong
Clanged all the street again to noise and riot.
Tall city structures seemed to loom still higher
And shut the sunlight out. Intolerant,
Unbeautiful and loud-voiced vehicles
Proceeded on their way to rave and rant.
There was no peace in all the city's mart
Save but for him who found it in his heart.

108

A WAR POEM

Lord, in this quarter of a hundred years,
What mighty progress in Thy world appears!
Though strife and loud dissensions do not cease,
Yet louder still is this great talk of Peace.

Red war exists, but stands in ill repute
Were Homer back among us with his lute
He could not, and he would not, sing of war;
For Peace is what the world is craving for.

Spurning old narrow paths, men's feet have trod
In larger ways, and found the larger God.
Now thy great truth is dimly understood—
Religion lies in loving brotherhood.

109

YOUR FATE

Everything you long for,
Whether good or ill,
Shall at length be given
If you have the will—
If you have the patience
And are very still.

All is in the silence
Waiting to be brought
Forth to form and substance
By the Builder, Thought.
That is how God fashioned
Everything He wrought.

Yet I often wonder,
Looking at the earth
With its weight of worries,
If God finds it worth
All the force projected
Thinking it to birth.

110

Worlds and universes
In the silence wait;
Yours the power to shape them,
Either soon or late.
But be very careful
How you form your fate.

111

BE SORRY FOR THE BOYS A BIT

Be sorry for the boys a bit,
And mothers, guard your girls.

What are they doing while you knit?
Can they among the throngs be found
That daily haunt the camping ground,
With skirts that hardly hide the knees,
With hanging braids and curls,
And ways that tantalise and tease
The tiger that lies in the lair
Of each man's heart?

Oh, mothers, spare
Yourselves a life-long grief and shame,
And face this fact:

112

Bold innocence oft makes a pact
With knowing evil, by its act;
And men should not bear all the blame
Of sins that follow.
Unaware
Of all it means, your daughters dare
And challenge men to give full rein
To passions which they would restrain.

Be sorry for the boys a bit.
All duty is not just to knit!

Lay down the sweater and the sock
And with your daughters sweetly talk.
Tell them the things they need to know:
Guard what they do, and where they go:
Let down their skirts an inch or so;
Restrain their riant curls
Before like butterflies they flit
To dazzle soldiers' eyes.
Safeguard their innocence and youth
By telling them life's sacred TRUTH.
Oh, help them to be wise.

113

PRAYER

You can blaze trails to God's most secret spot;
And you can enter the hidden Cosmic Centre
If you resolve your self into one thought.
Love-love-love-love-and yet again more love
Until your very being seems thereof
A part and parcel. It must be intense—
The love which lifts you to those holy heights,
And sends you thence
To bask in their delights;
Like incense from a censer, prayer must rise
Up from your heart, and penetrate the skies.
But fervent love, and unremitting prayer,
Will build ascending pathways, stair on stair,
From earth to God's fair regions; and the door

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Between you and your dead, shall stand ajar
To close no more.
No more shall they seem distant and afar.

Pray-pray-pray-pray-and love the while you pray.
Love God the Source of light, love man His ray.
Love Nature, rising out of Him: love life
With all its turmoil, weariness and strife—
And all its empty pleasure, since they show
God as the only goal we need to know.
Love toil,
Which is the harrow that prepares the soil
For planting heavenly harvests; and love death,
That glorious friend, who takes our mortal breath
And gives us life immortal. Love and pray,
And splendour shall illuminate your way
And joy shall sing to you a lofty strain—
Even in hours of pain,
Turning earth's discords into harmonies.
Prayer is the road to bliss.
Prayer leads us on till we stand face to face
With goodly companies of Friends in Space:
The Great Uplifters of the human race;

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And tunes the listening ear their messages to hear.
Prayer will give strength to weakness, wings to fear,
Knowledge to ignorance, and prayer will shed
Light on the pathway, where our feet must tread.
Who loves and works, and prays unto the end,
On him God's wisdom must at last descend.

116

THE LOVE THAT LEADS TO GOD

Oh, I have loved you four ways,
And I shall love you five.
For when the body turns to dust,
The Soul is more alive.

You came into my youth prime
And gathered all its flowers:
As Kings go to their gardens
And revel in the bowers.

I loved you—loved you—loved you—
As Nature loves the Sun.
And your life was my life
And all our ways were one.

There came a chastening grief time
Where love seemed purified:
A little child had come to us—
A little child had died.

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Love smiled on us through tear drops,
The earth path we had trod
Showed somewhere in the distance
A curve that led to God.

Then came the sombre Fall time
With cares to fill each day.
But your ways were my ways,
And duty seemed but play.

What kisses told in June days
Hand clasping hand now told.
And there was youth in both our hearts,
Although our lives grew old.

And now you are immortal—
You know the second birth.
And your ways are God's ways,
And mine are ways of earth.

And in the love I bear you—
I feel the chastening rod:
Oh great Soul—oh mate Soul—
You are so near to God.

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Though I have loved you four ways,
I yet shall love you five:
My Soul will cast its body off
And stand by you alive!

And we shall dwell together
In glory like the sun.
Where your ways and my ways,
And God's ways are one.

University of Virginia Library

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